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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Chap. 



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HARROGATE CHURCH INSTITUTE LIBRARY 



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IH DE-mAHD 



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MUST BE RETURNED within SEVEN DAYS, 

Or a FINE of SIXPENCE PER DAY will be incurred. 



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Dep't of Immigration. 

— , — ► ♦ ■ 

For Maps, Circulars, Information 

about Kansas, Colorado, New 

Mexico, Arizona, California, 

Old Mexico, Address 

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TOPE K A, KANSAS. 

Southwestern 



Letters. 



BY 

Noble L. Prentis. 

1882. 









J 



OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



^ 






/ 



OBSERVATIONS 

OF 

A RANCHWOMAN 

IN 

NEW MEXICO 



BY 



EDITH M. NICHOLL 





Jk_ 






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i 




41 



ON A RANCH 

Honttan 
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1898 



OL 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE HEALTH SEEKER I 

II. THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO - - 20 

III. OUR CROPS - - - - " 5° 

IV. IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM - 7 1 
V. CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY - - 107 

VI. OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN - - 131 

VII. OUR HELP - - - - - 151 

VIII. WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO - 1 73 

IX. OURSELVES, AND OTHERS - - - 1 92 

X. ' LAW-ABIDINGNESS ' IN T,HE SOUTH-WEST - 2IO 

XL THE NORTHERN MYSTERY - - 237 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 



on a ranch - - - Vignette title. 

PUEBLOS DANCING IN FRONT OF THE CATHOLIC 

church - Frontispiece. 

TYPICAL MEXICANS - - - To face 20 

A YOUNG PEACH ORCHARD - - „ 6 1 

STREET IN NEW MEXICAN TOWN - - „ 243 




J 



OBSERVATIONS OF A 
RANCHWOMAN 

CHAPTER I. 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE HEALTH-SEEKER. 

There must always be a first day — a first 
strange, hideous day — when, dumped down 
upon a sand-bank to continue there the 
tiresome struggle for life, the weary health- 
seeker has to call once, twice — nay, thrice 
— upon all the latent pluck there may be 
in him in order to endure the dead and 
utter blankness of his lot. Recollections of 
that miserable hour, when too disheartened 
to properly appreciate the uniqueness, the 
indescribable picturesqueness, of my environ- 
ment, still enable me to sympathize with the 
newly-arrived — ergo y discouraged — invalid. 

i 



2 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

We had got beyond the stage of belief 
in pamphlets — a green and transitory stage 
in this land of glowing periods — yet a solemn 
silence fell upon our party as the omnibus 
careened over the sand-billows of a New 
Mexican village street. Through a day and 
a night of Texan desert we had been sup- 
ported by visions of the wonderful fruit- 
valley in Southern New Mexico, whose fer- 
tility and other attractions were to compen- 
sate the health-seeker for loss of home and 
friends — the well-worn shibboleth, in fact, as 
old as it is false, that everything has its 
compensations. Every mile of the forty the 
train leisurely rumbled over after leaving the 
border- city of El Paso was eagerly scanned ; 
yet it was still desert — the Rio Grande a mere 
thread on one side, rugged mountains on the 
other, and between these the interminable 
sandy waste, gloomily dotted with mesquite, 
sagebrush, grama, and the like. Nevertheless, 
these were mountains, and gaining, too, in 
beauty and grandeur with every mile ; and 
upon them the mountain-worshippers, starved 
upon the Texan plains, fixed eyes at once 
hopeful and devout. As the train drew 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



near the goal, there came into view fenced 
fields, groves of cottonwood -trees, homes 
palpably inhabited by 'white folks,' irrigating 
ditches — yes, the vaunted attractions of 
the famous Mesilla Valley were, after all, 
materializing. 

As we alighted at the station and climbed 
into the omnibus, the prospect continued to 
please — at a distance. It was winter, and 
the w r orld was arrayed in shades of brown 
and drab ; but over all was the radiant 
American sky, and in the centre of the little 
town rose the twin domes of the Catholic 
church, painted, by the order of kind priests, 
a soft, harmonious red ; and there was mis- 
tletoe on the shuddering cottonwoods, its 
berries pearl-white against the background 
of sapphire. And beyond towered the 
awful steeps of the Organ Mountains, their 
jagged spires and pinnacles casting shadows, 
sharp, yet aerial, in the rarefied atmosphere 
of 3,800 feet above sea-level. They were 
a dream, miles on miles removed, yet there 
were moments in which we were ready to 
declare that fifteen minutes' walk would bring 
us to their knees. 



4 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Thereafter ensued the disillusionment — 
the disenchantment, rather — above men- 
tioned. Hurled in heaps to all four corners 
of the omnibus in turn, our observations 
were necessarily superficial and perfunctory ; 
but we were rolling apparently between rows 
of mud-daubers' nests, and crude side-walks 
edged with a frill of boneless and unwashen 
Mexicans. Arrived at our inn, even a genial 
host could not furnish comfort for the weary, 
be it for mind or body. Small rooms, all 
alike infected with the deplorable Southern 
(American) habit of opening immediately on 
the open air, are not conducive to the well- 
being of the invalid, either in summer or 
winter ; and this was distinctly winter, with 
that tang in the air which goes with the 
brilliant sunshine of high altitudes. Then 
there was the Chinaman, who administered 
the affairs of the culinary department with 
the careful parsimony of his race when his 
own provider. To us he allotted leather 
stripped from the mighty bones of range 
cattle, watered milk, eggs that had seen 
better days, canned goods of the year before 
last. Peace to his manes! He may be 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



dead — at least, he hath evanished — and to 
the inexorable fiat of the range cattle butcher 
all alike, Christian and heathen, submit — not 
altogether silently, perhaps, but still submit, 
because, forsooth, the way of escape is not 
yet made plain. To the health-seeker who 
had often been cast adrift in the echoing 
wilds of the Virginia mountain hostelry, the 
culinary provision set forth by the Chinaman 
had in it nothing strange or new. Seas of 
grease ; wiry chickens slaughtered on the 
back-porch an hour or so before the meal ; 
delicacies of the like description thumped 
down in front of the appetiteless in little 
dabs of dishes — who that has been ordered 
to Virginia Springs for the benefit of his or 
her health has not served faithful appren- 
ticeship in the art of living on nothing ? 
Not quite nothing, however, where the 
matchless bread of the South is to be found, 
but in Las Cruces there is no bread of the 
South. 

Within a day or two of our arrival arose 
one of the winds which sweep occasionally 
through our midst ; and through our midst is 
no mere figure of speech. Hour after hour 



6 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

a huge wall of sand, without end or begin- 
ning, roared steadily along the Valley, 
embracing, as it would appear, the entire 
real estate of Colorado or Arizona, and 
therewith wiping out our sky and mountains. 
Across the street men, invisible to one 
another, shouted vaguely, like hailing and 
separated ships in storm or fog ; the sand 
sifted into every crevice of one's dwelling, 
of one's whole entity, in fact. All that could 
be done w T as to stuff door and window cracks 
with paper, and, taking a seat beside the 
stove, possess what soul seemed to be left 
in patience. At intervals it was found desir- 
able to inquire as to the safety of the adobe 
walls, but the answers obtained were not 
sufficiently satisfactory to compensate us for 
being blown down the outside stairway of 
our abode. Already we began to under- 
stand why the native almost never builds 
him a two-story house ; and after having 
watched, only on the day previous to the 
storm, a gang of Mexicans dig a house down 
with ordinary spades, our fears for our high 
house were not unfounded. 

But winds pass like other things, and one 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



glittering, sun-possessed day succeeded an- 
other. We sat on the gallery and gazed 
upon the street below, upon Mexicans with 
gay-striped blankets, ranchmen coming in 
with farm produce or to ' exchange the time 
of day/ visiting invalids wandering aimlessly. 
Or we paced the sandy and too often odori- 
ferous streets, passing the commonplace and 
home-like American stores without interest, 
but observing and endeavouring to translate 
the signs over the Mexican stores as an 
initiatory attempt at learning what we still 
fondly believed to be a language. Once was 
pressed upon the prospective housekeeper a 
Mexican butcher's English circular, by which 
it appeared that he offered his customers 
1 a kind and delicate treatment and prompt 
despatch of business.' Here and there, 
coming into view at the far end of a street 
of flat - roofed houses, casting clear - cut 
shadows on the glaring sand, was, surely, 
a glimpse of Old Spain. White turreted 
buildings, one above the other, a back- 
ground of near, olive-tinted mountain, a sky 
of purest turquoise or sapphire, according to 
the light. True, the turrets were but the 



8 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

humblest of chimneys, but the effect was 
good, nevertheless. 

Sometimes we plunged ankle-deep in 
sand and climbed the eastern mesa — the 
tableland rising betwixt the village and the 
Organ Mountains — gazing curiously as we 
passed at the adobe huts of the natives, each 
with its corral fenced about by brush or 
wattled sticks, or occasionally a mud wall, 
and harbouring lean, roped ponies. Every 
live thing is roped in this country, pigs and 
cocks included, and even sometimes the 
errant hen, until all hope of her performing 
her duty for the day is at an end. The 
ubiquitous cur and the dirty black-eyed child 
pervaded the village landscape. 

The first impression of the native is Dirt 
and Hat ; and here it should be said that the 
entire population of this little town is only 
about 2,500, and that the Mexican is in the 
proportion of three to one of the American — 
1 American ' being used in the usual compre- 
hensive sense of the word. Dirt is possibly 
an indispensable item of the picturesque — 
'up to a certain point, you know, up to a 
certain point ; but you can go too far.' We 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



thought the Mexican went too far, as we 
circumvented native interiors, and held our 
breath and hurried, in spots along his streets. 
Unfortunately, the white settler is apt to fall 
into the slovenly ways of his coloured fellow- 
citizen, and filthy backyards and contami- 
nated water bring results which, in their 
turn, cause grief and woe and the uplifting 
of hands and eyes : ' Why do we have fevers 
in this climate ?' More than this, alkali 
water at its best, out on a scrupulously 
swept and garnished ranch, is far from being 
a delectable drink, though time and custom 
reconcile the system to its use. In summer 
many of the white inhabitants of the valley 
spend Sundays, or even a week or more, at 
a mountain camp part way up the Organs, 
where pure water, magnificent views, and 
cool air are provided. For my part, the air 
of the valley is invigorating enough — too 
invigorating, indeed, sometimes. 

As for the Mexican hat, as we stood on 
one of those first days upon the mesa, we 
could see it bobbing at intervals between the 
rows of trees along the level valley ; for it 
must be remembered that in Old and New 



io OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Mexico it is the hat that maketh the man, 
not the man the hat. 

From this desolate mesa the beauty of the 
Valley — the Rio Grande, smitten by the strong 
sunlight gleaming here and there — lay spread 
wide before us, a Vale of Promise. At our 
backs rose the mountains, rich in ore — silver, 
lead, copper, and gold. Across the Valley 
and the river was the western mesa, swelling 
in its northward course to the dignity of 
another mountain range. In the centre of 
the picture crouched the adobe town, ad- 
mirably picturesque at a distance, and boast- 
ing a few brick buildings in which those who 
prefer ' progress ' to comfort can be as un- 
comfortable as they desire. Notable among 
these buildings were the court-house, the 
public and convent schools, the Catholic and 
Methodist churches, and a mile or so to the 
southward the New Mexico College of 
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, with which 
is connected an experiment station. To 
north and south of the town swept the wide 
alfalfa meadows, irrigation ditches bordered 
by cottonwood-trees, orchards abundant in 
promise of almost all non-tropical fruits that 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



grow, vineyards with vines still banked up 
and tied for better protection from the cold. 
Here and there was yet to be seen a 
hacienda, or fortified dwelling, built around 
a patio, or courtyard, with windows few and 
inconspicuous, and each hacienda possessing 
one broad arched doorway for the admission 
of loaded waggons in times when Indians 
were a perpetual dread. There was a weird 
attraction about the landscape which made 
me, for one, declare that I should like to sit 
on the mesa in the sunshine for hours every 
day. This awful desolation — those granite 
peaks behind, the fertile vale before — the 
scene was unique. It appealed vividly to 
the imagination ; anything might have hap- 
pened in such a landscape. And verily 
enough has happened to earn for the village 
the name of Las Cruces (The Crosses). Here, 
in days not so long past, cross after cross 
dotted the soil, marking the spot where, 
each in his turn, the white settler fell beneath 
the tomahawk of the Indian savage ; and in 
the village plaza one large wooden cross still 
bears the inscription, 'To the Unknown Dead.' 
The Indian savage has now, in this section at 



12 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

least, resolved himself into a ■ Pity-the-poor- 
Indian' effect, and the harmless jin-de-siecle 
pueblo visits Las Cruces only to perform 
his sacred all-day dances in front of the 
Catholic church, and, as unkind rumour 
hath it, to be plundered of the priests — in 
the name of Mother Church, of course. 

' But,' observed my friend, as she gazed 
sorrowfully upon once dark skirts and un- 
recognizable boots, ' if you came up on the 
mesa every day, what would you do about 
your clothes ?' 

' Hold an auction of my entire Eastern 
wardrobe at once, and with the proceeds 
purchase sackcloth,' was my prompt reply. 
4 A substitute for ashes is provided gratis by 
the country. But mesa or no mesa, this 
revolution must take place if we are to 
remain in the Arid Belt.' 

' Yes,' sighed my companion, 'and clothes- 
brushes come too high ; I have worn out one 
already. 

Down the track from the mountains two 
bundles of animated sticks were approaching, 
preceded by a flock of jaunty and inquiring 
goats. Each bundle was surmounted by the 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



hat of the country, and further adorned by 
the long ears of the burro, or native donkey, 
whose four little legs, greatly abbreviated at 
that, pattered along underneath the whole 
affair — two Mexicans, in short, carrying 
firewood to market. And after these fol- 
lowed a ten-horse team laden with ore for 
the smelter. 

Weeks lagged by, spent in what seemed 
an almost hopeless attempt, not at ranch- 
hunting — good ranches abounded, people 
being at the tail-end just then of a destruc- 
tive boom, and willing enough to sell — but 
home-hunting. The dreariness of the sur- 
roundings of the average farmer's home in 
this section debars description. The new- 
comer, straight from the East, and unable 
or unwilling to put a small fortune into 
* improvements,' may well be discouraged. 
As one gets better acquainted with the 
country, some reasons for this apparently 
wanton neglect of home-making present 
themselves, but they are far from being 
sufficient in themselves. The absence of 
flowers and creepers is partially explained 
by the care they require, owing to the dry 



14 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

climate and the impossibility of irrigating 
near an adobe house, lest it should subside 
into the mud-puddle from whence it sprang ; 
consequently watering must be done by 
hand, and the hands of the farmer's wife are 
already overfull. Still, a little ingenuity over- 
comes this difficulty in part, and the home 
is blessed with the saving grace of flowers, 
however few and humble. The Mexican 
women are ahead in this particular, and it 
is not uncommon to see in front of their mud- 
hovels tiny spaces enclosed by cactus or 
brush fences and blazing with colour. But, 
generally speaking, not only is any attempt 
at outside ornamentation of the ranchman's 
home absent, but disorder runs rampant and 
unchecked. Twenty years' intimate acquaint- 
ance with a country confer some right to an 
opinion, and I am obliged to confess that 
neatness cannot be counted among- the 
characteristics of the average American 
housewife, admirable though she be in other 
respects. I have a theory, though theories 
often disappoint one in the washing, that the 
conspicuous lack of home-training, combined 
with the fact that a large majority of 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 15 

American women have to scramble into the 
housekeeping business, so to speak, over- 
worked from the very start and with no 
servants, or else a single inefficient one, are 
together responsible for this common want 
of order and method. True, the American 
house where two or three servants are always 
kept is, perhaps, the daintiest in the world ; 
but the reason for this exquisite refinement 
of detail is that the woman who is rich 
enough to pay the high wages demanded 
on this side does not of necessity obtain 
their equivalent in skilled service. Unless 
she neglect her duty as hostess — and I have 
yet to meet the American woman whose 
peer as a hostess is to be found outside of 
her own country — she still has to attend to 
all the details herself, though spared the 
hard and wearing work which falls to the 
lot of the immense army of her less fortunate 
sisters ; she has leisure for those details, 
therefore, for the proper performance of 
which her servants are incapable, and in 
consequence the hand of the refined woman 
lends a grace not to be seen where even the 
best of trained servants attend to all the 



16 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

household duties without aid, and in most 
cases without supervision. English people 
who have done much visiting in well- 
appointed American homes endorse without 
question this and other graces of hospitality 
in which the well-bred American hostess is 
proficient. 

But here, in the Far West, the disorderli- 
ness characteristic of the average house-owner 
of moderate means is discouraging indeed. 
From ranch to ranch we wandered, only to 
be repelled by the same forlornness. ■ It 
would take a small fortune to make a home 
of such a place P was the despairing ex- 
clamation as we turned our backs on one 
squat adobe house after another, each planted 
on a bare patch of hard clay, in most cases 
destitute of a porch, and not a leaf or a 
flower to be seen — an untidy barnyard, 
littered with farm implements, plebeian hens, 
mongrel curs, and Heaven knows what not, 
all in close proximity to, if not actually 
elbowing, the dwelling. That good farm 
buildings are rare is not surprising. In the 
first place, the short sunny winters and the 
hardy stock of the country make it possible 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 17 

to dispense with elaborate barns. The 
Mexican stable is as often as not simply 
four posts stuck into the ground, the roof 
being made of brush, on which the corn is 
kept. Should this erection possess sides, 
they are pretty sure to be made of closely- 
wattled and thorny mesquite or other brush ; 
and, strange as it may seem, such a shelter 
is not to be despised. Those who have the 
money to spend build them barns of adobe, 
and excellent they are ; but to build in adobe 
is far from being as cheap as it sounds. As 
for lumber, the farmer who can extend him- 
self in that direction must have a big bank 
account. The fences are, of course, barbed 
wire. The indifference to appearances, or, 
speaking more accurately, indifference to the 
externals of a home, seems to work like a 
contagion. Granted the existence of pleasant 
exceptions, the ordinary ranch-house in the 
Mesilla Valley causeth the blood of the un- 
happy stranger to run cold. ' And in one of 
these I am to make my home .!' is his inward 
moan. He remembers the long and costly 
journey from the East, and realizes that few 
will be the friends of his (now) past who will, 

2 



18 ' OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

for his sake, sit four days and a half in a 
Pullman car and spend large coin in the 
endeavour to cheer his exile. One train per 
diem runs the downward length of the valley 
and brings him his Eastern mail, and with 
this, one or two faithful friends excepted, he 
must learn perforce to be content — make 
new friends and absorb himself in toil, of 
which latter he will in very truth find no 
lack. So the stranger braces himself, and 
' takes a fresh grip.' 

And at last, after much wading through 
and rolling over the so-called roads of the 
country, a home was found even for this 
' tenderfoot.' What was it that decided the 
question ? Alas ! must it be confessed by an 
ambitious ranchera that it was not wholly the 
fertile, if neglected and unfenced land, the 
fruit-trees in bearing, the generally admirable 
possibilities of the ranch from a farming 
point of view, which alone turned the scales 
when weighed against hideous, nay, almost 
unparalleled, disorder and neglect ? What 
was it, then ? An attractive carriage-drive 
bordered with young trees, a few rose-bushes 
before the door, a magnificent cottonwood 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 19 

spreading wide, sheltering arms over a well- 
built adobe dwelling. And was this all ? 
No — for bounding the horizon, a perpetual 
vision of beauty, rose the grand heights of 
the Organ Mountains. Poor reasoning this, 
no doubt, for a prospective farmer, yet not 
without its proven worth as we entered the 
long vista of toil, struggle, and aggravation 
which goes to making a home in the Land 
of Poco Tiempo, that perfect substitute for 
the After Awhile, and N ever-do- to-day- what- 
you- can -possibly -put -off- till -to -morrow, of 
certain States of the Middle South. 



[20] 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO. 

The picturesque attributes of Old Mexico 
are self-evident, and have been so often and 
so well written up as to have become almost 
hackneyed. In New Mexico, on the con- 
trary, these qualities are less theatrically 
displayed, and, indeed, to many settlers in 
the territory are barely noticeable, so much, 
naturally, depending on the point of view as 
well as on the species of eyesight possessed 
by the observer. Where the point of view 
is strictly utilitarian, as in the case of the 
majority of settlers, the picturesque may be 
virtually considered non est; and, again, 
when the picturesque is too ardently sought 
after and desired, the result must inevitably 
be inaccuracy in the impression presented to 
the reader. 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 21 

For it must never be forgotten that this is 
New and not Old Mexico, and that whilst 
the Mexican predominates in the population, 
enjoying such influence as mere superiority 
of numbers can bestow, unsupported by in- 
telligence, the American is the dominating 
element. A nice distinction, perhaps, but 
an important one, for all that. To assign, 
therefore, to the Mexican citizen of the 
United States such a part as he plays in 
Old Mexico would be to give a false and 
unreal description of life in the Territory ; 
and it is with life in the Territory, and 
in a small corner at that, that these un- 
exciting little personal experiences have to 
do. Yet, small though the corner be, the 
strong tide of feeling and opinion ebbing 
and flowing all over this great country 
searches out its every nook and crevice. 
The Mexican element is, then, of necessity 
only a circumstance, and to assign to the 
native more than his due share of conspicuity 
or influence would be to present a picture 
untrue to life as it is with us. 

But the language! There is always the 
language to be reckoned with, and perhaps 



22 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

the severest of all trials for the ' tenderfoot ' 
is the struggle to acquire the mongrel tongue 
of a mongrel race. Oh yes, you are going 
to do wonderfully ; you are going to learn a 
new language, and an easy one — l'Espanol ! 
It is easy? Assuredly, under certain con- 
ditions. In the first place, you must divest 
yourself of the delusion that this that you 
are about to acquire is a language ; for it is 
a patois, pure and simple. In the second, 
you must, while learning the jargon, put all 
more important concerns out of your head — 
which, for a new-comer in a strange land, 
settling into a strange home, is a manifest 
impossibility. When, with a dozen serious 
matters weighing on your mind, you turn 
aside from these at some critical moment 
only to confront an unknown tongue, and 
rush wildly to dictionary or grammar, in nine 
cases out of ten it will be your unhappy 
lot to discover that the Spanish and the 
Mexican word have scarcely even a blood 
relationship, and that the dogged and irri- 
tating ' no sabe ' of the nominally American 
citizen rises like a dead wall in your 
harassed path. Then you lose patience, fling 



mmmmmm 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 23 

dictionary and grammar out of window, de- 
clare the Mexican to be the lingo of the 
imbecile, and — if you have leisure sufficient — 
break out in a tirade against a Constitution 
which permits of such lapses from common- 
sense in its code of citizenship, etc. Finally, 
you firmly resolve to insist on your employes 
learning the language of their own country — 
the American. After awhile comes a modified 
relenting, aided by circumstances over which 
it cannot be said that you have control. But 
you are no longer an enthusiast. One does 
not, for instance, repair to Ireland to learn 
English. And even were it the Spanish 
you would learn, you gradually grow to feel, 
as work and cares increase, that a language 
whose equivalent for ' umbrella ' is ' an-article- 
to-be-held- above- the- head- as-a-protection- 
from-the- weather ' is — well, to put it mildly, 
out of date. The word in question may not 
be exactly ' umbrella,' neither may its Spanish 
equivalent be precisely accurate, but this is 
the effect of the language upon the novice. 
Anyhow, we have but one life, and that is 
short. Stray weeds of Mexican speech are 
gathered by the wayside, and with these the 



24 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

busy ranchero for the most part learns to 
content himself for a year or two. 

A simple receipt for acquiring the lingo in 
connected phrases seems to be as follows : 
Sit down hard somewhere near the tail-end 
of every other word, and bawl. Or, as was 
once somewhat pithily remarked, shout in 
scallops, and don't forget to swallow the 
lowest point of each scallop. 

The interminable pow-wow of the Mexican 
who wanders to the American's ranch to 
trade or buy is an unmitigated nuisance. 
The object of the former is, of course, to 
satisfy his desires at less than cost. The 
moment arrives when the exasperated 
ranchera is driven to muster her best 
Mexican for the purpose of observing, with 
more vim, perhaps, than courtesy : 

4 If you have time to say the same thing 
over twenty times, / have not. I must work. 
Adios, senorF 

1 Trabajo ?' — this with smiling disbelief. 
1 Ah, no, no !' 

Then the argument sets in da capo. 
Meantime an annoyed guard-dog is striving 
to escape the restraining hand. 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 25 

' I tell you, No !' reiterates the dog's mis- 
tress. 4 I will not sell my fine wine at half- 
price. Adios !' 

And at last the weary scene is closed. 

Mexican courtesy, which is made so much 
of by the admirers of the race, is a superficial 
article at the best, and there goes with it, 
in the majority of cases, a lively sense of 
benefits to come rather than of gratitude for 
benefits received. Considering that his order 
of intelligence is lower than that of any race 
with which I have as yet come in contact — 
below that of the negro — it must be con- 
ceded that the Mexican possesses a rare 
talent for imposition. He will get out of 
the American all he is worth, and more. 
At this point a typical tale — one of many — 
comes to my mind. Some neighbours were 
in the habit of hiring a certain Mexican 
by the day ; and knowing them, I also know 
how many kindnesses they had showered on 
this man, who Hved with his family at some 
distance. One morning he appeared : ' Oh, 
I cannot work to-day ! My oldest boy is 
sick — mucho malo !' Filled with sympathy, 
his kind employers gave him money to buy 



26 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

medicine for the sick one, invalid food, etc. 
Soon the sorrowing parent returned : ' Ah ! 
my boy, my muchacho, he is dead ! Ah, 
triste, triste !' His white friends lavished 
more sympathy, and, better still, more 
money, this time to buy a coffin for the 
muchacho. The tragedy was repeated, in 
the course of a few weeks, with the same 
results, only on the next occasion the victim 
was a girl for whom the neighbourly offices 
of the Americans were entreated. ' And 
would you believe it,' concluded my in- 
formant, laughing heartily, ' my husband 
happened to have business down that way 
recently, and he discovered that not only 
had none of Jose Martillo's children died, 
but that he had never had any to die.' 

After relating this episode, it is but fair to 
add that the Mexicans are exceedingly good 
to one another either in trouble or sickness, 
and that while the well-provided ranchero 
will be slow, nay, obdurate, about giving 
money, he will permit his children and his 
children's children to abide almost inde- 
finitely beneath the ancestral roof. 

But intelligence ! Now, here is Juan, who 



~ ' IIITIIT " 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 27 

has worked for me long and often, and whose 
stupidity is past all prayers and strivings of 
the gods. He is pleased with me because I 
pay him more than his labour is actually 
worth ; the reason for this apparent folly on 
my part being that here, in darkest New 
Mexico, I pay so much for labour and so much 
more for honesty and industry, these having 
their separate and distinct market value — for 
me. Juan is also pleased with me because 
he thinks I am rich. In Southern com- 
munities a reputation for paying one's just 
debts carries with it an inconvenient repu- 
tation for untold wealth. This is a delusion 
by no means confined to the Mexican and 
the negro. Now, Juan, being a steady 
worker, is not in burning daily need of cash. 
Therefore, while at the close of each day's 
work the money due for the same is entered 
in my ranch-book, Juan usually does not 
apply for it except on occasion, and then 
only piecemeal. For he once worked for 
me as a regular monthly hand, with satis- 
factory results to himself and his little yellow 
family ; consequently he is willing to use me 
as a bank. But lately I determined to have 



28 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

a grand settling-up. This is the scene that 
ensued : 

Juan squatting on the floor in front of the 
Senora, who is seated in a chair, pencil and 
ranch- book in hand. 

The Senora : 'Juan, I owe you exactly five 
dollars. Your work for the month comes to 
fifteen dollars, but I have already paid you 
ten on account.' 

Juan (reproachfully, and with solemn head- 
shakes) : ' Now, senora, I figured that you 
would give me fifteen dollars to-day.' (Then 
follows a lengthy summing-up on his fingers 
of the work he has done.) 

The Senora : ' Yes, Juan, that is right. 
Your work amounts to fifteen dollars. But 
on the 10th of the month I paid you five 
dollars, on the 20th three dollars, and on the 
26th two dollars. That makes ten dollars 
I have paid you. Don't you remember ? I 
have it all entered in my book.' 

Juan : ' Si, senora. But I still figure that 
you owe me fifteen dollars.' 

The Senora : ' Didn't I pay you ten 
dollars during the month, Juan ?' 

Juan: ' Yes, senora; but the work I have 



V -r-^ —- - __ „, ",.,. . ". ^- - _ ; J_ 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 29 

done I have kept account of in my head, and 
it is fifteen dollars.' 

The Senora (praying for patience) : ' Juan, 
have I ever failed to pay you what I owe 
you?' 

Juan : 'No, senora, never. But I make 
out that you owe me fifteen dollars.' 

The Senora : ' Now listen to me, Juan. 
Here are fifteen books in a pile. I take 
away five, then three, then two ; how many 
are left ? Five, are there not ?' 

'Yes, five. But, senora, I make out 
that ' 

'Juan, you took away the money just as 
I have taken away the books. You can't 
take away and still have the same.' 

A silence. At last Juan, resignedly : 

1 'Sta bueno, senora ! If you are content, 
I am. I just figured on the fifteen dollars, but 
if you claim you don't owe me that much ' 

He shrugs his shoulders, sighs, and spreads 
his hands. 

The Senora (firmly) : ' Juan, that won't 
do. I will write the account down on a 
separate sheet of paper, and you shall carry 
it to Mr. ' (naming a merchant of 



30 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

prominence in the town), ' and if he says I 
have not paid you all I owe you, why, then 
I will pay more.' 

Juan (springing excitedly to his feet) : 
' Oh, no, no, senora ! I am quite satisfied. 
I'm sure you know, and I don't want to ask 
Mr. .' 

Of course he doesn't, for obvious reasons. 

The above is a fair sample of the Mexican 
combination of stupidity and avarice, for 
there is not a white person in the community 
who would refuse to give Juan a character 
for honesty. And, indeed, he is honest, 
according to the lights of the peon. 

Taken in the aggregate and externally, 
the peon is not an inviting specimen of 
humanity. I pause, because in gazing upon 
certain types of the Mexican — particularly 
when, as often chances, he is full of new wine 
— one catches one's self speculating about 
the humanity. The health-seeker and casual 
visitor writes sentimental stories about him 
— him and her ; yet if the average be taken, 
neither appears to be exactly the proper 
subject either for sentimentality or romance. 
The Mexican, as he may be seen every day, 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 31 

kicking his half-starved pony in the stomach 
for some imbecility of his own, or digging 
the terrible Spanish spur into its bare ribs, 
its poor little back and legs bending and 
quivering beneath the weight of two of him 
as it is raced at a gallop through the deep 
sand, does not commend himself as an object 
of romance. Personally, I find it difficult to 
sentimentalize over a race, the large pro- 
portion of which is brutal beyond the manner 
of other races to its beasts. It has been 
well said that the man who is cruel to dumb 
animals will bear watching. The Mexican 
will bear watching. Anyone who can, for 
instance, observe a Mexican at the plough- 
tail for five minutes without ' losing his 
religion ' must either be a stoic or a saint — 
the former for choice. If the low-crested, 
dull-eyed, slouch-tailed, jammed-shouldered 
equine - sons of the sage-brush ' are often as 
bad-tempered as they are hardy and endur- 
ing, a slight acquaintance with their environ- 
ment, past and present, explains their attitude 
to their world as well as the figure they cut 
in it. To one, however, straight from Ken- 
tucky or Virginia, either of which States 



32 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

may fairly claim to be the home of the 
Perfect Horse, the sage-brush beast is a 
burden scarcely to be endured. Time alone 
can make him endurable. A good-looking 
Mexican pony is as rare as a good-looking 
Mexican peon. 

The typical peon of New Mexico may be 
described as follows : He has a high, conical 
head, coarse black hair without the ghost of 
a wave, and combed, if ever combed at all, 
straight down from the cone over a pair of 
small dark eyes. His skin is muddled, his 
nose and mouth designed apparently with 
more haste than finish. In form he is 
seldom athletic or well-built. Needless to 
say, the type is subject to wide variations, 
but the above is a fair composite picture. 
For that unpleasing head of his he exhibits 
the tenderest care, swathing it on chilly days 
in a blanket, crowning the bundle with the 
everlasting, ubiquitous hat. This blanket of 
his, by-the-by, is an altogether fascinating 
article of apparel — to the artist. In whatever 
style it be worn, and however grimy, it is 
unfailingly picturesque. A Mexican crawling 
up the quaint street of the ancient adobe 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 33 

town on a cold, brilliant winters morning, 
crouched on the seat of his unpainted, ram- 
shackle waggon, behind his dejected, rope- 
harnessed ponies, his blanket drawn far over 
his head and shoulders, his high-crowned hat 
perched on top of all, and the point where 
we opine his nose to be buried in his knees, 
comes in well as a figure for a middle distance. 

If not in his waggon or on his pony, he may 
be found in rows — nay, in heaps — squatting 
in winter against a sun-warmed adobe wall 
— ' the Mexican fireplace ' — smoking the 
perennial cigarette, gambling, possibly, at 
monte or chusas, drinking the wine of the 
country, or, better still, simply chattering ; 
for it is a garrulous race. 

The Mexican dude is another affair alto- 
gether. He is not common with us, but he 
is to be found. His is the hat of romance ; 
the everyday Mexican's is the everyday hat. 
Both are steeple-crowned, broad-brimmed, 
and heavy enough to resist the wind of the 
country ; but while the one is built in plain 
straw, unadorned, the other is bravely 
fashioned in solid goods of scarlet, black, or 
gray, embroidered in silver spread-eagles, or 

3 



34 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

at its humblest having a silver cord and 
tassels wound artistically around the base of 
its pyramid, and it cost probably twenty-five 
dollars, or even more. Buckskin, also em- 
broidered in silver, and sufficiently tight- 
fitting to show off a good leg (always provided 
that he hath an exhibition - leg), is also 
affected by the dude. His pony wears a 
tasselled bridle wonderful and gorgeous to 
behold, and champs restlessly on a magnifi- 
cently cruel bit, with the aid of which, and a 
dexterous use of the spur, he can be induced 
to kick the dust of the village streets into 
the eyes of admiring senoritas. The high- 
peaked saddle, fabulous in weight and mar- 
vellous accoutrement, has furnished matter for 
travellers' tales galore. Truly, the Mexican, 
kempt or unkempt, is, from the artistic point 
of view, hardly to be spared. Bereft of him, 
the knight of the brush would be poor indeed. 
But the superb Mexican caballero, that 
gorgeous person who still adorns the pages 
of illustrated magazines, is here conspicuous 
by his absence. Even in Old Mexico, when 
met with, which is but rarely, he fails to fulfil 
expectations. How should he be anything 



g^ag g ^jgLiJ^LJ*. ; 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 35 



but a vara avis, where indifference to the 
breeding, as well as to the comfort, of the 
horse is rather the exception than the rule, 
and where the native animal is seldom attrac- 
tive to the eye unless half or three-quarters 
American-bred ? How can the bony, ewe- 
necked little Mexican steed, stiff-jointed from 
colthood, be transformed as by a miracle into 
the proud Spanish barb of our youthful fancy? 
The thing is not to be done. Worse still, 
there is that eyesore, the much - vaunted 
1 Western seat,' affected alike by American 
and Mexican, but far less exaggerated and 
ungainly in the case of the latter than the 
former. The Mexican, at least, possesses a 
certain supple quality of limbs and body which 
detracts from the unmitigated awkwardness 
of the ' forked radish ' cowboy style of riding 
— heels working, reins held high in air. The 
average Far Western horseman is more or 
less helpless without his cumbrous saddle, in 
which he sits as in a deep chair ; the Mexican, 
on the contrary, provided he lays any claim 
to being a horseman, is as much at home on 
his horse's bare back as he is in the saddle. 
There is a wild picturesqueness about the 

3—2 



36 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Mexican style of horse-racing — traceable, of 
course, directly to Indian manners and cus- 
toms — which is unique. The horses — in this 
section almost invariably possessing some 
American blood if sufficiently speedy for the 
Mexican's favourite diversion — lend their own 
beauty to the scene. The wide, dusty road 
is lined with country waggons, pedestrians, 
caballeros, chiefly native, every face tense 
with excitement. The jockeys — usually two, 
or at most three — are bare-footed and bare- 
headed, their loose locks sometimes bound 
Indian fashion. White cotton drawers and 
shirts comprise the costume. The frantic 
steeds rear and plunge, the dark-skinned 
Mexicans sticking to their bare backs like 
centaurs. Then, amid the roar of the crowd, 
away they go, disappearing in a cloud of dust. 
But anything more unlike the typical caballero 
can scarcely be conceived of. 

Before quitting this subject of Far Western 
horsemanship, it may not be out of place to 
remark that, on first confronting specimens 
of it in the streets of a large city, it was hard 
to convince me that the riders were not, one 
and all, drunk. When affected by women, 



■ j uiLii.uijL-11 :■*_ ■ ■ j. .ml . , .immmmmsmm 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 37 

the prevailing style is even more displeasing; 
the grace and science of the noble art of 
horsemanship have no longer any existence. 
What a spectacle for men and gods ! Arms 
and legs flying, shoulders heaving — yes, it is 
undoubtedly good exercise, this riding, suit- 
able for broncos without manners, possibly, 
and assuredly well qualified to aid in the 
rounding-up of cattle ; but Heaven forefend 
that it should be called ' riding ' in any other 
sense ! 

From the point of view of the employer 
of labour, the Mexican's picturesque qualities 
are obscured by others less gratifying. Ex- 
periences on a thirty-acre ranch are neces- 
sarily somewhat limited, but not so much so 
as to preclude endorsement of the opinion of 
those who farm on a larger scale. ' Of twenty 
Mexican labourers whom I may employ,' 
quoth one of these large fruit-growers, ' one 
may be honest and industrious.' 

There are potent hereditary factors at 
work in the making-up of the modern-day 
Mexican. For one thing, it must never be 
forgotten that slavery was only abolished by 
law as late as 1867, and then, according to 



3$ OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Dame Rumour, but nominally, so far as 
portions of Old Mexico are concerned. And 
Spaniards make hard task-masters, affirms 
the same oracle. A mongrel race — various 
Indian tribes crossed in the first instance with 
Spanish soldiery, whose vices were certainly 
not hidden under a bushel — holds little in it 
of fine promise. There is distinct evidence 
of caste among them, and I am assured that 
the further one travels from the border, the 
more marked becomes the improvement in 
the race. The more or less of Indian in the 
blood has fully as much to do, no doubt, with 
that question of caste as has the possession 
of more or less of worldly goods. 

The admirers of the Mexican (chiefly 
feminine) in his labouring capacity will ex- 
claim, in defence of his indomitable laziness, 
1 Oh, it's the climate ! This is the land of 
poco tiempo, you know.' The climate ? What 
nonsense ! is our inward retort. This is no 
tropical atmosphere, but one that is ex- 
hilarating and incentive to a fault. At 
3,800 feet above sea-level, an altitude which 
increases with every mile taken northward — 
with a clear air that literally sparkles even 






wmssm 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 39 

on the warmest summer mornings — to talk of 
the languor induced by climate is surely the 
vainest of follies ! It is the land of poco 
tiempo by reason of the nations that inhabit 
it — the mixed Southern blood, the acknow- 
ledged deterioration following on the crossing 
of the white and the coloured races (a well- 
known fact where the negro is concerned, and 
as yet uncontradicted, speaking generally, in 
the case of the Indian), the prevalence of the 
bad man (white), the predominance in the 
population of mere politicians and selfish office 
seekers and money grabbers. What wonder 
that the small minority of public - spirited 
citizens lose heart ! But it is not ' the climate ' 
which causes honest workers to drop back in 
the collar ; it is the impossibility, as it may 
well appear to them, of hauling such a load 
of obstructionists and incapables. In sections 
of the Territory where capital has been judi- 
ciously employed, and politics have been, 
comparatively speaking, ignored, with the 
result that intelligent and thrifty citizens have 
flocked to such sections, talk concerning the 
land oipoco tiempo dies away into silence. The 
climate is, in fact, all in favour of the worker. 



40 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

For the first few months of my career as 
an employer of Mexican labour in Southern 
New Mexico, I received the pardonable 
impression that the attitude most affected 
by our progressive fellow-voter and citizen 
was that which depicted him with his head 
in a wine-barrel and his legs at right angles 
thereto. This impression has undergone 
distinct modifications, but is not yet effaced. 
The native ranchero who is not the owner 
of a vineyard is a rarity. In a large number 
of instances the feet of the native still tread 
the wine-press, and the skin of an erstwhile 
beast swelled with new wine may yet be 
seen suspended without the dwelling of the 
landowner. Why should he not drink of the 
fruit of his own vine, he argues? But Juan 
says, with an air of justifiable pride : ' I used 
to drink like they do, but I don't now ; it 
doesn't pay. I drink a little — si, a little — 
every day — but I stop. Now, Luciano — he 
keeps a pitcher of wine by his bedside. 
When he wakes in the night he drinks a 
little — therefore you see how it is with him.'^ 

* The Americano declares that it takes very little to 
make a Mexican drunk, giving as his reason for this 
assertion the Mexican's lack of brains ! 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 41 

The Mexican labourer is like the negro 
in one respect, only more so. Your life, if 
you are a ranchman, or, more luckless yet, 
a ranchwoman, is largely spent in gathering 
up the fragments that remain. Neverthe- 
less, your utmost efforts do not avail to 
maintain the order and neatness which should 
be the sign-manual of a ranch ; yet, if you 
have already served an apprenticeship with 
the happy-go-lucky darkey, you submit to the 
inevitable with at least a fair show of philo- 
sophy. If after many weary days your 
Mexican has been induced, with occasional 
lapses from grace, to keep his waggon, 
ploughs, etc., in their appointed places, there 
still remains to you the felicity of 'picking 
up ' after him. He has been led to mend a 
gate ; there lies the hammer on the ground. 
A rope has been used to temporarily tie a 
horse ; there lies the rope. You wander 
through sheds and barns, gathering, or 
making him gather, pieces of harness, spades, 
hatchets — everything, in short, that should 
not be just where it is. Or you don't, and 
the unfailing moment arrives when work 
presies and some indispensable article re- 



42 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

quired is missing. Where is it ? ' Quien 
sabe ?' — who knows ? The retort courteous, 
but unsatisfying. 

Now, there is Hernandez — he is neither 
repulsive nor degraded in appearance, not 
even plain ; on the contrary, he has some- 
what the air of a peaceful Spanish hidalgo — 
in miniature, and of tender years. He is 
therefore ornamental, and his manners are 
charming ; also his English is fair to middling. 
He is also not cruel to animals. Hernandez 
is really good to horses so long as their 
demands upon him are not too exacting. 
He is always courteous, sober, and — great 
day in de mawnin' ! to quote our negro 
friends — honest. At the same time, as 
before intimated, Mexican honesty is apt 
to be of the comparative order, and the time 
came when that of Hernandez gradually be- 
came more and more comparative. The inch 
given was assumed to supply also the ell, 
and kindness did not seem to produce — as 
in the better sort of negro — a greater faith- 
fulness. 

Hernandez was agreeable in every capacity 
save that for which he was hired, i.e., work. 



^■HB^ ^SJcJJQAJLl^-J-iglgJJ-B' 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 43 

Had I been able to give him thirty dollars 
a month and his board in return for a few 
light chores, it would no doubt have been 
satisfactory to retain him as a pleasant 
appendage to the establishment ; but as I 
was not able thus to support him in affluence 
and ease, we were compelled to part. Of 
the six months our contract endured, several 
weeks were consumed in the ceremony of 
marriage, which for the Mexican bridegroom 
appears to be beset with complications. 
There were the new relatives to be 
courteously entreated — above all, to be fed, 
lavishly and numerously — wedding garments 
to be provided for the bride, etc., and much 
of this with the aid of my waggon and team, 
and on wages due only in rather dim per- 
spective. For me remained the privilege 
of providing a home for the bride and groom 
against the time when they should declare 
themselves ready to occupy it. Over and 
above this, I enjoyed the cheap privilege of 
hope. But hope proved poor provender on 
which to subsist. Whether Hernandez was 
already reaping the not uncommon fruits of 
marrying above his station — for he considered 



44 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

that he had done so, insufficient as the 
evidence appeared to me — or whether I was 
reaping the also not uncommon fruits of 
kindnesses bestowed, I cannot say ; but it 
is certain that a few hours per diem of 
reluctant, intermittent toil were all that were 
vouchsafed me. Hernandez loved better 
than ever to sit in the shadow of his own 
vine and fig-tree, and gaze with primaeval 
calm upon stationary horses hitched to a 
stationary plough. In fine, his motto was, 
'Work some — rest some.' 

One day there was a large onion order to 
be filled by 10 a.m. At 8.30 Hernandez 
strolled languidly to the scene where another 
man had long been at work. He met my ex- 
pressions of anxiety lest the order should not 
be in time with the gentle plaint : ' I'm not 
used to being hurried.' Later, as he sat in 
the waggon, his assistant carrying the onions 
to him, he begged that when he got to town 
he might have a man to help him lift the 
hundred-pound sacks to the ground. Harden- 
ing my heart, I refused, whereupon he 
delivered himself thus : ' Sometimes I feel 
like working, and sometimes I don't.' 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 45 

I may add that by dint of superhuman exer- 
tions on my part the onion order was filled ; 
also that manual labour was pointedly omitted 
from the health programme furnished me. 
It is well, however, that the person seeking 
a home in the Far West, either for health or 
other profit, should understand beforehand 
that it is without avail that he omits manual 
labour from his programme ; this is the rock 
on which many invalids either go to pieces 
or meet with disappointment. A delicate 
person, unaccustomed to the combination of 
physical toil and the mental harassment in- 
separable from inefficient co-operation, is 
bound, in the nature of things, to make 
slower progress towards health than one 
whose conditions of life have always included 
manual labour. This is a point too often 
overlooked by physicians who hurry their 
patients from comfortable homes to shoulder 
the burden of existence in the Far West. 
When added to this is a natural love of 
work in the patient, further encouraged by a 
stimulating climate, it is easy to understand 
how at the end of a year or two the 
medical reproof may be, ' You have gone 



46 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

too fast. Now go slow.' We all know the 
story of the impoverished sick woman for 
whom the physician prescribed port-wine and 
game ! 

Finally, there was recommended to me a 
native who was represented as being trust- 
worthy, hard-working, intelligent — in brief, a 
compendium of all the virtues. With heart 
uplifted I hastened to interview him. This 
was the result : He was entirely satisfied with 
the wages offered, liked to work (O marvel !), 

w T anted a permanent situation, but ' But 

what /' I ejaculated, concealing an anxiety 
not unnatural. Well, he had three horses ; 
times were so bad that he could not sell 
them, and. dared not turn them out on the 
range, for fear they should be stolen ; he had 
to get a day -job whenever he could in order 
to feed them and his family. Representation 
and argument alike fell flat; this man, who 
was really in need of steady work and anxious 
to do it, could not be brought to see that 
good wages, although they might leave his 
fifteen-dollar-ahead ponies idle, would feed 
the family and the worthless beasts twice over 
for what he could earn by odd jobs. Before 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 47 

closing the hopeless — and, of course, long- 
winded—discussion, I inquired if he could 
recommend anyone else. No, he didn't think 
he could — most Mexicans liked to work 
some and rest some — didn't care to work 
right straight along. And all the consolation 
I received when relating my failure to his 
referee was a shrug of the shoulders, and the 
ejaculation : 

' Just like a Mexican ! Waste of time to 
try and reason with any of them !' 

Yet another native touch : Complying with 
law and custom, I provided four men to do 
each a day's work towards cleaning the 
public ditch for irrigation purposes. At the 
end of the day a Mexican youth presented 
himself and the bill. On the paper the 
names of but two men were inscribed as 
having worked, the sum demanded amount- 
ing to wages for four. 

' What is the meaning of this ?' I in- 
quired. 'If only Luciano and Pedro worked, 
why do I pay the wages of Matildo and 
Jesus ?' 

'Two men worked,' was the stolid re- 
joinder. 



-■-- _ 



48 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

' Then I won't pay the wages of four.' 

1 But two men did four days' work.' 

' All in one day ? That is impossible.' 

' But, sefiora, they did !' 

' Muchacho, that cannot be. I must under- 
stand better before I pay two men the wages 
of four. Go, and request the mayordomo to 
look into this affair.' 

Presently appeared the mayordomo. 

' Sefiora, the bill is correct. The men 
have worked.' 

4 Sefior, I repeat the thing is impossible ! 
Two men cannot in one day do the work of 
four men.' 

' Senora, ' impatiently, 'four men worked.' 

' Why, then, did this muchacho tell me 
that only two worked, and why are not 
the names of Matildo and Jesus on the 
bill ?' 

1 He told you that only two worked,' yet 
more impatiently, as if I should have divined 
by instinct his process of reasoning, ' because 
there was no room on the bill for the names 
of the others.' 

Here, as often, fortunately, the situation 
developed itself into the ridiculous, and 



THE MEXICAN IN NEW MEXICO 49 

having induced the ' boss ' to squeeze in the 
names of Matildo and Jesus, which he did 
without the trace of a smile softening his 
hideous features, we parted on the best of 
terms. 



[ So] 



CHAPTER III. 

OUR CROPS. 

Seven of the clock on a fair summer morning. 
The breakfast is fizzling on the stove ; the 
aroma of mocha and Java floats out through 
open doors and windows. The flock of 
ebony hens, lately released, and heralded by 
gay chanticleer, their score or so of scarlet 
combs glowing in the sunshine, are grazing 
in the alfalfa, uttering loud croons of satis- 
faction. In the stable-corral chicks are 
furiously scratching. The cows, long since 
fed and milked, chew the cud of bovine 
ease. Up and down the drive, round and 
round in the alfalfa, kicking up its heels 
in the joy of life, races a beautiful colt, the 
hope of the ranchera, to whom the beast 
of the Far West is as the abomination of 
desolation. Meanwhile the mother tugs at 



OUR CROPS 



her rope in all the futility of maternal un- 
easiness. 

Equally anxious, though from a different 
cause, the ranchera stands at the kitchen 
door, shading her eyes from the blinding 
morning radiance. 

' Juan, have we got the water ?' 

' Si, senora,' cheerily. 

'Ah, that's good ! Now, hold on to it? 

' Bueno, senora.' 

And the bare brown legs, tall hat, and 
clumsy hoe disappear under the orchard 
trees. 

If there is any more entrancing sound than 
the hissing of water after long drought into 
cracked and thirsty land, or a more refresh- 
ing sight than that of the brown torrent 
spreading cool fingers over the face of dry 
and heated meadows, this ranchera is not 
acquainted with either. 

It is no easy task for an enthusiastic farm- 
ing person to tell of the agricultural methods, 
the fruits, the vegetables, the crops, of this 
productive Valley without waxing tedious to 
those for whom farming matters are simply 
a bore. Yet there is one process, that of 

4—2 



52 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

preparing for, sowing, and harvesting alfalfa, 
which may not be wholly uninteresting in 
the telling, even to him who loves not the 
land. 

In the first place, Alfalfa is the stand-by 
of the Arid Belt. Without going into 
botanical distinctions, it is sufficient to say 
that it is a variety of clover, but in those 
sections where it flourishes the superior of 
both clover and timothy. Ton for ton it yields 
more than either ; not only that, but here 
in New Mexico four cuttings in one season 
are not uncommon, and a yield of three tons 
per acre is considered by good judges a con- 
servative estimate. In nutritive and muscle- 
forming qualities as hay it has no equal. 
Work-horses fed only on alfalfa keep in fine 
form and spirit, so long as they are given 
enough, or, more important yet, sufficient time 
in which to eat. The careless Western horse- 
owner's bony steeds must lay the blame of 
their appearance to his indifference, not to 
alfalfa-feeding. Horses used for speeding 
purposes require grain, although I have seen 
even this disputed by the trainers of young 
trotters : but as the condition of our roads 



OUR CROPS 53 



seldom permits of more rapid transit than 
that provided by the leisurely pounding of 
the English carriage horse, it may be at 
once perceived that there is one corner of 
the United States in which, alas ! we do not 
1 trot ' — or, at least, not often. Personal 
experience goes to prove that cows fed on 
alfalfa hay, supplemented only by a nightly 
ration of bran, produce butter excellent as 
regards both quality and quantity. Needless 
to dilate on the trouble and expense spared 
the dairyman in this detail alone. Hogs and 
chicken graze it, and with little additional 
food in summer time are remunerative to 
their owners. Whatever may be affirmed to 
the contrary, however, alfalfa will not bear 
very close grazing, and although, if properly 
irrigated and not grazed too long at one 
time, it will last an indefinite number of 
years, enriching instead of impoverishing the 
soil, it is doubtful if it will endure flagrant 
neglect. Compared with other crops, how- 
ever, it needs but little attention. Its one 
and only serious disadvantage lies in its 
dangerous properties where cows are con- 
cerned ; that is to say, there are but few 



54 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

weeks in the year when cows can be turned 
loose with safety in an alfalfa meadow. It 
is no exaggeration to say that there is not 
a farmer in this vicinity who has not lost 
one or more cows from the deadly 'alfalfa 
bloat.' When growing it is very succulent, 
and the cows eat it greedily — the result : 
bloat and speedy death. Scrub cows suffer 
comparatively little — horses and mules not 
at all — and careful investigation goes to 
show that the pure-bred or graded Jersey, 
of small stomach and voracious habits, is the 
common victim. But the subject of ' alfalfa 
bloat,' the best modes of prevention and cure 
— when a cure is effected — is a subject for a 
treatise ; and when I say that at the meeting 
of our Farmers' Institute a whole morning 
was consumed in the animated discussion of 
how and when to graze cows on alfalfa, bloat 
and the various modes of prevention thereof, 
and that scarcely two persons agreed, it may 
well be seen that the subject is at this point 
ripe for abandonment. Each ranchman has 
his own method of dealing with the matter, 
and considers his the best. 

As alfalfa does not thrive in heavy or 



OUR CROPS 



55 



holding soil, the levelling of the land in order 
that water may not lie on it is of the first im- 
portance. Here the Mexican is in his element. 
With plough and scraper he accomplishes 
unerringly a task which to the inexperienced 
white man is beset with difficulties. By the 
aid of his eye alone, unassisted by any 
mechanical devices, he rapidly reduces un- 
even land to the uniform level of a billiard- 
table. Then with hoe supplementing plough 
he divides his field into squares, each square 
having its raised edge or ' border.' The 
land is now prepared for irrigation. 

Many Americans irrigate before sowing, 
and not again till the crop is well above 
ground. Personally, I have had poor 
success with that plan, and now do as the 
natives do. The Mexican sows his seed 
first, though it goes without saying that the 
initiatory step to ploughing in a rainless 
country must be irrigation ; then after the 
land has dried off sufficiently the plough 
follows. The Mexican, therefore, having 
sown his seed, and made his ditch along one 
or two sides of the prospective alfalfa meadow, 
and through the centre also should the case 



Hi 



56 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

require it, now seeks the public acequia. 
He raises the water-gate, and lets the stream 
flow into the private ditches of the ranch, 
following it up, making dams with his hoe, 
and directing it into the special ditch re- 
quiring to be filled. From this acequia, by- 
cutting small water-ways in the borders, he 
runs the water into one square after another 
until all are covered in turn with from one 
to two inches of water, according to the 
supply and to the condition of the land. 
This is the simple and effective flooding 
system. Sub-irrigation, practised with suc- 
cess in portions of California, has been found 
to be on the whole a failure here. It seems 
as though the fine seed of the alfalfa, and 
especially as it is never covered deep, must 
inevitably be swept away and drowned by 
the waves of such a flood ; but somehow or 
other it survives, and soon greets our wait- 
ing eyes with a show of tender green. It is 
usually sown here in March or April, and 
with a nurse-crop of oats or barley, for the 
double purpose of keeping down the weeds 
and sheltering the young alfalfa from the 
burning rays of the sun. It is ready for its 



OUR CROPS 57 



first cutting by the time the nurse-crop is 
sufficiently high to be cut for fodder. 

A prettier spectacle than a meadow of 
well-established alfalfa ripe for the harvest, 
running like a purple sea under a fine May 
breeze, it would be difficult to picture, even 
for the man who cares nothing about farm- 
ing. The first cutting takes place in May, 
and, provided there is a good supply of 
water, at intervals of from six to seven weeks 
during the season. The harvesting of four- 
teen acres occupies at the most four days, 
there being, as a rule, more danger of the 
hay drying too much than too little. If 
stacked too dry, the leaves, its valuable 
element, are apt to fall and be wasted in 
the hauling. There is occasional loss in the 
' rainy season.' 

Then there is the fruit, the joy and pride 
of our Valley — still more to be its joy and 
pride when that awful doubt about water 
ceases to haunt the spring dreams of the 
ranchman. Now, when the doubt is solved 
in the wrong way, and he knows there is no 
water, he simply resigns himself. When his 
alfalfa crackles under his feet, he endeavours 



58 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

to shut his ears ; when his cabbage falls in 
helpless heaps, his corn turns its leaves in- 
side out and looks to him in vain for succour, 
his young fruit-trees develop weak backbones 
and cast their yellow leaves reproachfully in 
his path, and his melons and cucumbers 
shrivel into the invisible, he strives after 
blindness. What better can he do? At 
least, he is not on a cattle ranch, watching 
dumb live things perish by inches ; his 
creatures are not sentient, or he hopes that 
they are not. Moreover, in the Arid Belt 
the rainy season can at the worst be hoped 
for, and complete destruction of crops is more 
rare here than in certain States of the Middle 
West or even of the South. 

As regards improved orchards, the Valley 
is yet in its infancy. The first shipments of 
'improved' fruit were not made until 1891, 
and yet ' Mesilla Valley peaches ' are already 
considered 'gilt-edged,' and are sold on the 
trains as far East as Chicago. Last season, 
shipped for the first time to Los Angeles, 
they drove the Californian product out of the 
market, for the peach and apple of Califor- 
nia, though fine to look at, are, except when 



OUR CROPS 59 



mountain-grown, without flavour — a defect, 
some say, due to over-irrigation ; others, to a 
lack of stimulating quality in the atmosphere 
— whereas the fruit of New Mexico, since 
being taken hold of and improved by Ameri- 
cans, possesses both looks and inward merit. 
It is also said that the superior altitude of 
the Territory gives its fruit the flavour so 
much relished, and that when the dam is 
built, which will enable the high mesa lands, 
at present barren, to be irrigated and set out 
in orchards, not only will the fruit be still 
finer, but the danger resulting from occa- 
sional late frosts will be greatly lessened. 
In California it is already proved that the 
orange groves set out on the mesas enjoy 
almost entire immunity from frost. Orange 
and lemon groves are, of course, out of the 
question in this climate, but in their stead we 
have not only peaches and apples in perfec- 
tion, but apricots, plums, quinces, prunes, 
pears (the latter fruit so far only of medium 
quality), nuts of different varieties, and grapes 
by the ton. If this were a farming treatise 
or an advertising pamphlet, exact statistics 
of the bearing capacity of trees and vines 



60 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

might be of interest, and even in this place 
they are not altogether superfluous. The 
chief objection to such details lies, of course, 
in that question of accuracy. One success- 
ful American grape -grower estimates that 
each vine yields him on an average twenty- 
five pounds of grapes. This is the Mission 
grape, taken all in all the most satisfactory 
grape to grow here. It was brought to the 
territory several hundred years ago by 
Spanish priests, and is certainly a delicious 
grape, purple in colour and very juicy, 
devoid of the solid flesh which makes some 
high-priced varieties such uncomfortable eat- 
ing. It ripens some time in August, is not 
subject to disease, and when more widely 
known, owing to improvement in transporta- 
tion facilities — our present bugbear — should 
command an immense market. Here comes 
in, again, the need of co-operation — co- 
operation as it is practised in California and 
elsewhere. It is easy enough to make fruit 
grow in New Mexico ; to sell it to profit and 
advantage, especially in the case of small or 
moderate growers, is another matter. The 
small grower, under present conditions, finds 



OUR CROPS 6 1 



himself at a disadvantage. He is not able — 
railroad charges on the one and only rail- 
road being so high — to ship with profit, and 
the local market is soon glutted. He either 
sells his grapes at a cent a pound, makes the 
crop into wine, or tears up his vineyard in 
wrath and sows the land to alfalfa, vowing 
that grapes cost more to irrigate, prune, 
cultivate, and bank up for the winter than 
they bring in the market. Co-operation 
alone will bring relief, and with the influx 
of intelligent farmers, who understand that 
in union is strength, prosperity is bound to 
come. Even in peach-growing the small 
farmer cannot be sure of his market. The 
large grower is, of course, safe enough. 

Last June I was in a peach orchard con- 
taining about sixty trees in full bearing. A 
lovely display it was indeed, the great round 
fruit glowing in the evening sunlight, and 
bending the branches almost to the ground. 
But the owner did not share my enthusiasm. 
There was no market, and the peaches were 
spoiling, for the peach is the most perishable 
of crops. There were not enough for a car- 
load, too many for village peddling. Even 



62 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

the markets of the neighbouring city were so 
crowded that prices were down, and shipping 
would not pay. 

'Well, we must combine,' I cried, 'and 
ship to distant points like the big growers 
do individually.' 

'There's no combine in this place,' was 
the retort ; ' it's every man for himself, and 
— the Old Gentleman take the hindmost !' 

I regret to have to say that this was 
but a rather vigorous summary of a reply 
I received from the President of our Agri- 
cultural College, whom I consulted as to 
the feasibility of forming a Farmers' Asso- 
ciation, not merely for the marketing of 
fruit, but of all farm products, and I added 
that I thought that the College, placed here 
with the idea of guiding and instructing the 
farmer, ought to take the initiative. The 
President expressed himself warmly in favour 
of my view, but also as to the utter hope- 
lessness of any such happy consummation. 
' Someone would have to be at the head of 
such an association,' he wound up by saying, 
' and no one trusts anyone in this community.' 
A nice state of affairs in a community which 



OUR CROPS 63 



claims to be of the great progressive West ! 
It is no marvel that some intending settlers 
prefer the effete East, and return whence 
they came. The President might have 
added that as an institution planned for 
the benefit of the people is run to a large 
extent — some persons maintain entirely — in 
the interest and for the benefit of the 
politicians, any such independent move on 
his part in the direction indicated would be 
considered distinctly officious. However, 
when ' the old order changeth, yielding place 
to new,' and the dam is built and the farmer 
comes to the front, then we may yet live to 
see the politician drowned out. 

A peach orchard costs considerably less 
to plant than an orange grove, and comes 
into bearing much earlier. I set out some 
one-year-old peach-trees last spring, and this 
spring one of the trees bore fruit. No doubt 
I should have plucked it immediately, but I 
allowed three peaches to hang on the tree, 
and they are now, seventeen months from 
the date of planting, very large, beautifully 
coloured, and of fine shape. The thinning 
of fruit in the spring is important in a climate 



64 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

where trees bear so lavishly. An experienced 
horticulturist of this section gives it as his 
opinion that a three-year-old tree, speaking 
generally, covers a circle of twelve to eighteen 
feet in diameter, and bears in proportion 
from two hundred and fifty to three hundred 
pounds of peaches. Apple-trees bear equally 
well, and until this year it was truthfully 
declared that a failure of this crop was un- 
known in the valley. An unprecedentedly 
late frost in April, however, ' broke the 
record,' and left us only half a crop. Apples 
from our neighbourhood won the gold medal 
at the World's Fair. 

Needless to say that, while it was the sight 
of native orchards heavy with fruit which 
was the impelling motive of the original 
American settler, it is not from the orchard 
of the native that the magnificent apples, 
peaches, and other fruits for shipping are 
culled. The Mexican, unless a superior 
specimen of his race, is at once too supine 
intellectually, too lazy physically, and too 
unintelligent by heredity, to improve upon 
methods acquired three centuries ago. True, 
he uses more modern implements, but his 



OUR CROPS 65 



1 scalded ' trees tell a tale of slovenly irriga- 
tion ; that is to say, in the majority of in- 
stances he still prefers to flood his orchard 
with water rather than go to the trouble of 
ploughing furrows on either side the trees, 
in order that the water may sink to the roots 
and may not touch the trunks, the effect of 
water upon tree-trunks in combination with 
a hot sun being disastrous. The lazy Mexi- 
can — and, to put it mildly, he is often lazy — 
considers such precautions in the light of 
misplaced energy. By the same token, 
when the time comes for cultivating, he 
floods again. As for inducing a native to 
keep down the weeds in a piece of land that 
does not happen to be cropped — well, then in 
very truth you may brace yourself for a tug- 
of-war. That the noxious and growing- 
apace weed of the Territory propagates itself 
from seed does not seem to occur to him. 
That there are progressive Mexicans and 
unprogressive Americans may be taken for 
granted, the latter vastly more numerous 
than the former. The often unavailing 
efforts to induce some fruit-growers to take 
measures for the extirpation of the insect 

5 






66 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

pests which have lately begun to infest our 
orchards is one proof — nay, one of several 
— of the existence of the latter ; yet the 
exercise of prevention as well as cure would 
soon rid us of worms and insects which have 
partially devastated orchards in neighbouring 
States. 

Another industry here, which has been 
tried in a small way with success, is the 
drying of fruit for market. If successful on 
a large scale in California, it surely should be 
so in New Mexico, where the climate is far 
more suitable for the process. Everything 
exposed to the sun and air in this region 
desiccates rather than decays. A gay- 
plumaged bird, shot and lost, was found two 
or three weeks later in a perfect state of pre- 
servation — dried like a mummy, yet feathers 
and shape perfect. This was in winter, too, 
when the power of the sun is, of course, less 
intense than in summer. A taxidermist could 
scarcely have improved upon Nature's work. 

All the common cereals do well with us, 
wheat in particular — partly, perhaps, because 
wheat is a crop which is usually ready to cut 
before the river gives out. When the water- 



OUR CROPS 67 



supply is assured, a report of yields to the 
acre of corn can be more accurately rendered. 
At present the yield varies too much with 
each year. Most vegetables grow with vigour, 
though, to be strictly impartial, not to greater 
size or in greater luxuriance than elsewhere. 
There are some, such as the potato, which 
need special care in irrigating. Onions and 
sweet potatoes are, perhaps, the champion 
vegetable crops, tomatoes merely being as 
luscious as they are in most parts of the 
United States, and as plentiful — which, how- 
ever, to the English idea means a good deal. 
Carloads of canned tomatoes are shipped from 
this place in the early winter. The famous 
Georgia water-melon has yet, it is asserted, 
to find its peer ; but its prototype, exhibited 
at a recent territorial fair as grown in the 
Territory, was a tolerable specimen, weighing 
71 pounds 4 ounces. 

Small fruits — with the exception of straw- 
berries, which succeed admirably — are a trifle 
discouraging. Having had no experience 
with small fruits in this climate, I can only 
speculate on the causes for failure. Neigh- 
bours — an elderly couple without children — 

5—2 



68 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

get along with them very well ; but every- 
thing they touch thrives, the reason being, I 
think, that they were wise in their generation, 
and bought only four or five acres of land, 
with the result that they require comparatively 
little water, easily obtaining a sufficiency, and 
that they do all the work except hoeing, etc., 
themselves. Ergo, when in the driest summer 
season one enters their leafy domain, behold 
there are no complaints ; everything is pros- 
pering, and, indeed, they do seem to grow 
everything. It is a veritable little paradise 
for the eyes of a woman weary of coping 
with thirty acres, water rights that are but 
an unseemly jest, and Mexican labour. To 
net $500 (about £>\oo) clear off so small a 
ranch every year, and that without the annoy- 
ances that add burden to burden, is a result 
not to be passed by with contempt. To have 
no losses, moreover, implies still further gain. 
Then there are the bee ranches. For those 
who like bees, there at once opens a profit- 
able and light form of employment. For 
my part, I give my beehives a wide berth ; 
but, fortunately, there are enthusiasts in this 
culture as in most others. A bee ranch has 



OUR CROPS 69 



the appearance of a white, flat-roofed town, 
its streets laid out with admirable neatness 
and order, the inhabitants prosperous and 
industrious — though since coming to New 
Mexico I have learned that the bee is by no 
means always busy ; that, on the contrary, 
he is sometimes very lazy — whole hives of 
him — and that he has to be entreated, some- 
times rather evilly, to labour. He is due to 
work, I am told, for from three to five months 
of the year in this climate ; but occasionally 
he shirks. He sips largely from the alfalfa 
bloom ; and, indeed, alfalfa is the chief de- 
pendence of the bee as well as of other farm 
stock. An average of fifty pounds of comb- 
honey per hive is considered a very moderate 
estimate of the yield. 

In speaking of that matter of co-operation, 
on even a small scale, I by no means share the 
despondency of ' those who know.' I have 
reason to believe that a combination of no 
more than three persons, provided they under- 
took to raise more or less the same products, 
and under present unfavourable conditions, 
could find profitable market for their wares. 
A careful study of the question, reinforced 



mm 



70 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

by consultations with small ranchers, led me 
to this conclusion. More especially is this 
true of early vegetables to be shipped to 
distant northern points. The cost of trans- 
portation as borne by three persons instead 
of one — the high prices obtained for the pro- 
duce — these are self-evident facts. There is 
comparatively little hot-bed work done in 
this neighbourhood at present, and the early 
vegetable culture, which should feel encour- 
aged by the perpetual sunshine, languishes 
without fitting excuse. 

But here, lest love of my profession should 
lead me into discourse suitable rather for a 
Farmers' Institute than for these pages, I stay 
my too ready pen. 



[7i ] 



CHAPTER IV. 

IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM. 

Driving recently across the unreclaimed 
desert, we came suddenly upon a small patch 
of wheat, the fag-end of a stretch of land 
under ditch. There had been welcome 
thunder showers, and the air held a dewy 
softness not common in the Arid Belt. But 
for the glorious mountain range — -over whose 
bright face the clouds trailed giant shadows — 
the varying greens from emerald to sombre 
olive, the swift play of light and shade across 
golden wheat-field and verdant pasture, were 
almost English in their unaspiring loveliness. 
The eastern mesa wore its tenderest, most 
changeful aspect, and the red domes of the 
Catholic church made entrancing spots of 
colour in the middle distance of brown 



72 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

village in a bower of greenery. In the 
foreground was this patch of ruddy wheat, 
bending figures of Mexicans, a man in blue 
overalls and jumper erect against a har- 
monious sky. Once more, from the artist's 
point of view, the effect was perfect. But 
the eye of the rancher looks deeper. With 
that eye we noted the scanty crop in a fertile 
land — its scantiness in part the result of a 
long drought and the river's treachery. 
Fickle river indeed, which every third year 
or so fails in the hour of need, leaving only 
its bed, over which a man may walk dryshod 
ere June is old, or rising may engulf and 
drown him before he has time to cry Peccavi I 
Or it may wash away part of a neighbouring 
city and miles of railroad, and leave hundreds 
of persons homeless, and ourselves cut off for 
two or three weeks from communication with 
the world beyond. Manifestly, therefore, 
our river is not to be depended upon. And 
though some day it may do its worst without 
resulting damage to homes or crops, the 
Mexican's pitiful if picturesque mode of 
transacting his business will in all probability 
endure, with certain modifications, just so 



»t~ 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 73 

long as he endures — which in our midst may 
not be so very long. 

Some of the wheat had already been cut, 
but there were no shocks visible. The 
stooping figures were gathering the crop in 
little handfuls and armfuls from the ground, 
and carrying these dolls' bundles to the 
rickety waggon drawn by sad little ponies. 
Further on two or three other men were 
reaping as their fathers and grandfathers did 
before them with miniature old-time reaping- 
hooks. It all looked somewhat futile and 
inadequate in the centre of this wide panorama 
of mountain, vale, and sky. 

And yet further, as we drove upon our 
way, we passed a threshing-ground where a 
flock of panting sheep and goats were being 
driven in a circle beneath the pitiless sun, 
engaged in trampling out the grain. And 
round and round, keeping the flock within 
the appointed radius, walked the Mexican 
herder, raising at intervals that long, wailing 
cry which belongs rather to the desert wastes 
than to the cultivated levels and the brown 
ranch-house and friends and cheer. Further 
still threshing was at an end, and in the light 



74 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

airs drifting out of those high clouds men 
tossed the wheat above their heads, and let 
Nature do their winnowing. Later, in the 
autumn days, women may yet be found to 
sit without their doors, and grind the corn 
betwixt the upper and the nether millstone. 
It is even said that there are portions of the 
Territory in which the Mexican hitches his 
pony to a pointed stick and turns the kind 
earth, which here rewards him beyond his 
due measure, according to the manner of his 
progenitors. 

But there are some things which a man 
learns in three hundred years or so, and, as 
has already been shown, levelling land is 
one. Irrigating is another. In these arts 
the Mexican is an adept ; not only that, but 
in irrigation he finds much joy. After level- 
ling his land, a man has, indeed, to hoe small 
canals from his main ditches in order to 
conduct the water, and there come times 
when his bare brown feet have to skip 
through the flood at a lively rate ; but there 
are always long delicious intervals in which 
he can lean sleepily upon his hoe and gaze 
upon the flowing tide, and smoke cigarettes of 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 75 

which the odour is atrocious. The Mexican 
likes irrigating ; whether because, if he so 
choose, he can do it well, or for reasons less 
ambitious, the evidence is not sufficient to 
accurately record. 

This matter of irrigation is an all-important 
one with us. Our rainfall is practically 
limited to one season of the year, although 
it may surprise us at other seasons. In 
amount it cannot be depended upon ; it may 
rain too little, or, again, it may even rain 
too much — quien sabe? The Rio Grande, 
which has its source in the far mountains of 
Colorado, and is fed by the rains and snows 
of those regions, as well as by tributary 
streams descending from our own mountains, 
is our principal dependence, and, as has been 
intimated, of late years an unreliable one. 
Not only that, but in my experience it has 
elected to go dry early in the summer, when 
water is most needed, and not in the fall, as 
is often inaccurately stated for - boom ' pur- 
poses. The fertilizing properties of this 
muddy stream, however, are so great that 
the progressive farmer is spared one big 
item of expense in the purchase of fertilizers, 



I 



76 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

and is, moreover, enabled to follow a crop of 
barley with a crop of corn, in the same 
season, and without impoverishing his land. 
Then, should the river give out, he pins his 
faith to * the rainy season,' due to arrive in 
July or August. 

The storage dam, now hoped for, is a 
decidedly more reliable prospect than either 
river or rainy season, and once built and in 
working order it will transform this already 
fertile valley into a veritable Garden of Eden. 
Productive now to an extraordinary degree, 
and far ahead of California in the quality of 
all fruits, with the exception of the citrus 
varieties, for which the climate is not suited, 
the only hindrance to the success of the in- 
telligent farmer will be removed. I say 
intelligent farmer advisedly, for in these 
days scarcely a profession on earth calls for 
a greater show of intelligence, and the traits 
that usually go with it, than does this profes- 
sion of farming. Co-operation in all things, 
and in particular for the securing of good 
markets ; abstinence from petty, small-beer 
politics ■ the holding of farmers' institutes for 
the frank and free discussion of all matters 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 77 

pertaining to the farmer's craft ; the bringing 
of scientific and up-to-date methods to bear 
on the raising of every crop, and especially 
the fruit-crop ; the extermination of insect 
pests and noxious weeds ; the keeping of 
careful notes and records ; the improvement 
of his stock — all these things, and many 
others besides, are the inevitable duties of 
the intelligent and progressive ranchero in a 
section where climate and soil do so much, as 
well as in sections where they do compara- 
tively little. One of the worst features in 
farming in this valley at present, notably in 
1 wet ' seasons, is the tendency to sit back 
and let the river do everything. Constant 
cultivation is not valued at its true worth, 
except by the few ; and when a drought 
comes, it is still but these few who understand 
that between cultivating and not cultivating 
their orchards, and that to a fine tilth, lies 
the difference betwixt life and death. 

The Mexican system of irrigation is simple, 
but, though primitive, it is devoid of the 
primitive advantages of autocracy and the 
' Against this law there is no appeal.' The 
law of the Mexican ditch is the law of the 



78 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

strong or the wily. The mayordomo and the 
commissioners are alike invested with at once 
too much and too little power. The system 
in itself might not be amiss, provided other 
things were equal. But when not merely a 
coach and four could be driven through it, 
but one of the huge ' schooners ' of the plains 
also, ox-team included, it is no wonder that 
the American ranchero waxes restive. 

The system in brief is as follows : Each 
settlement or village possesses its own main 
ditch, or acequia, which leaves the river at a 
given point above the village, to return to it 
at a given point below. From this main 
acequia branch out various tributary ditches, 
or contra-acequias, which are used for the 
irrigation of land situated at distances more 
or less remote from the main ditch. The latter 
has its water-commission, to which commission 
one or two Americans generally manage to 
get elected. To this body appeal can be made 
should corruption and injustice get beyond 
even a Westerners endurance — no, not his 
endurance, for the Westerner is apt to be 
ready enough to take care of his own rights 
without appealing to law, but beyond his 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 79 

powers of self-defence. Unfortunately, be- 
hind the commission there are still the courts 
to be parleyed with, and the law takes a course 
even more roundabout and endless on this 
side of the water than it does on the other. 

For the maintenance of the main ditch, the 
property-owners are taxed both in money and 
work, according to the number of acres held 
by them. The first and second mayordomos 
receive salaries, and are elected annually by 
the community of water-tax payers ; it is 
their avowed business to see to it that the 
ditch is kept clean, and that the water is dis- 
tributed fairly. The cross-ditches, or contra- 
acequias, are governed by the same laws, 
each having its own mayordomo — invariably 
a Mexican, who almost as invariably makes 
the law of the acequia a by-word in the 
market-place. Taken all in all, the water- 
taxes in money and work on a thirty-acre 
ranch amount to from $32 to $40 per annum 
{£6 or £&, more or less). Naturally, those 
who give bribes and corrupt the innocent (?) 
native pay considerably more or less. 

But it is not alone the Mexican who is 
responsible for the farcical application of our 



80 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

water-rights system. Small-beer politics, the 
curse of this fair land, set the mark of the 
Beast on all 'rights.' Tom pays honest money 
in fair taxes ; but Manuel, the mayordomo, 
has other fish to fry, by order, probably, of 
some politician, who for the nonce holds the 
cards, or perhaps for more substantial reasons. 
So Tom gazes distracted and helpless upon 
shrivelling trees and parched alfalfa, while 
Dick and Harry, not more righteous than 
he, batten in green pastures and swelling 
orchards. The reiterated information that he 
is being imposed upon soon begins to wear 
for the ' tenderfoot ' the tiresome aspect of a 
truism. ' Tell me something new !' he cries, 
in the accents of the goaded. 

It may be there are yet some left in Israel 
who confound politics, as they are generally 
known, with patriotism. If so, let them live 
and learn in the Far West. 

For weeks before the fall elections, we 
ranchers were desperate for want of water. 
Early in the summer the river had run dry, 
and the rainy season took a seat behind the 
sun and grinned at us. Towards election-time 
a storm or two in the mountains filled up the 






IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 81 

river sufficiently for the bare salvation of the 
young orchards. But, behold ! the small and 
inefficient dam was broken, and there were 
none who would forego the delights of electing, 
or failing to elect, a few unimportant men to 
unimportant offices — petty in every sense, but 
that of the 'boodle' that went with them. 
As for the native, the idea of inducing either 
him or her to work so long as free whisky 
was the order of every day was childish, 
unless he or she happened to be a regularly 
hired hand. 

* If it was the election of the United States 
President, now,' I cried in my wrath to one 
who, like Gamaliel, cared for none of these 
things, ' or if there were the faintest show of 
any desire to serve the country, I could under- 
stand this idiotic condition of affairs ; but 
when it's all about nothing ' 

1 It's just a money-grab, that's all it is, r 
replied my acquaintance. ' These men don't 
want to serve their country ; they want the 
so many hundreds or thousands per annum 
these petty offices represent.' 

1 And, while they quarrel and scuffle, our 
Valley is to perish ?' 

6 



82 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

' Not quite so bad as that, let's hope ; but 
there'll be no end of unnecessary loss, of 
course, and times are bad enough already. 
However, you won't get a stroke of work 
done until election's over, so it's no use to 
worry.' 

I was sitting in my buggy in the main 
street of the town — that same street at night 
the scene of one huge 'drunk.' Even in 
this brilliant hour of morning boozy groups, 
principally Mexican, rolled from one saloon 
door to another. Every natural prospect 
pleased, save man and his present works, and 
they were indeed vile. I drove off rapidly, 
wrath and disgust in my heart. But what 
was the use ? Where comes in the utility of 
hurling one's self against a stone wall ? My 
object in starting out that morning had been 
the hope of inducing some merchant, the con- 
tin lance of whose own prosperity depended 
in some measure on the prosperity of the 
farming population, to furnish half the labour 
for the repairing of the miserable little dam 
— only twenty men, all told, for one day — I 
furnishing the other half. Needless to say, 
my drive was just so much time thrown 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 83 

away. I went home to gaze helplessly upon 
thirsty young peach and apple trees, many 
of which died, of course, and the orchard 
had to be partially replanted the following 
spring — more time wasted again. The usual 
wail went up — equally, of course — concerning 
' hard times ' and the ' poor man.' And all 
this took place in the dire and memorable 
year 1894 — the year of the Coxeyite Army 
and other such exhibitions. The elections 
resulted principally, over and above the afore- 
said losses, in furious mutual accusations, 
foul-mouthed abuse delivered through the 
medium of its usual mouthpiece, the village 
newspaper ; and stuffed ballot-boxes, fraud, 
bribery, and corruption of every description, 
darkened the air — nay, darken it yet, two years 
afterwards. Perpetual squabbling, varied by 
an occasional 'shooting,' takes the place of 
progress. 

One method of securing the votes of our 
enlightened fellow-citizens is worthy of men- 
tion. On the evening before election-day, 
the henchmen of one political party rounded 
up forty or fifty Mexicans well primed in 
advance with whisky, and, putting them into 

6—2 



84 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

a corral as if they were a bunch of steers, 
kept them under guard all night for the 
purpose of ensuring their ' straight vote ' on 
the morrow. This incident is only one of 
the anomalies of a country whose freedom is 
not only in perpetual danger of degenerating 
into license, but which does constantly de- 
generate into some of the worst forms of 
slavery — facts so obvious that the occasional 
lament of the more thoughtful citizen is not 
required to draw to them the attention of the 
new-comer, provided that the latter has eyes 
and ears of his own. Whether matters would 
improve, so far as New Mexico is concerned 
— whether its Augean stables would be 
cleansed by the simple process of turning a 
Territory into a State with State rights — it is 
not given me to believe, any more than, with 
the best intentions in the world, I can be 
converted to the Free Silver faith by the 
hollow and specious arguments of its ex- 
pounders. 

It is claimed that, by the conversion of 
this Territory into a State, an immense influx 
of solid citizens, able and willing to develop 
so favoured a section, would ensue ; that, 



— 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 85 

with the gradual extinguishment of lounging 
natives and ruffling gamecocks yclept poli- 
ticians, a day of prosperity would dawn. We 
who are unable to accept this dogma inquire, 
in our turn, ' If such men came, would they 
stay ?' For us the inevitable answer is ' No.' 
If the Territory is not ripe for statehood, a 
mere Act of Congress cannot work a miracle. 
The answer might be less assured if the right 
kind of men were striving for statehood — 
men of high character and noble motive, and 
that true, and, alas ! rare, patriotism which 
desires the public good rather than its own. 
To the reasonable reader the existence of 
the customary exceptions is a matter of 
course. 

In order to show how utterly dead to 
shame, as regards political corruption, the 
average territorial citizen is, I will quote a 
conversation overheard in a public place. 
The conversationalists were two gentlemen 
of fair repute : 

' Yes, A. acted badly. B. has been sup- 
porting him and his family for years/ 

' Why, certainly ; and everyone knows the 
reason for B. doing so.' 



86 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

1 Of course. Well, when B., in the nature 
of things, claimed A.'s vote last election — 
the only vote B. needed to get him his office 
— A. asked him a thousand dollars for it.' 

1 A rascally shame !' 

' Yes ; and, what's more, on that sum, and 
others A. has screwed out of B. at different 
times, A. will go down to Mexico and live in 
clover on a coffee plantation for the balance 
of his life.' 

More indignation, etc. The placing of 
the ' rascally shame ' precisely where it 
belonged might have caused more exercising 
of spirit — to the uninitiated. 

As for the quarrelsomeness of a little town 
abandoned to the lowest form of politics, this 
remark was once made in my presence : 
' Well, it's no use to talk ; it is utterly im- 
possible that Z. can have any enemies, for 
he does not mix himself up in politics.' 

No ; our hopes rest on a surer and more 
solid basis than statehood, though that will 
be welcomed when it is ready to arrive with 
permanent blessings in its train. An assured 
water-supply will bring us the right kind of 
men for the proper development of our rich 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 87 

and beautiful Valley ; and they will come to 
stay, too. 

It may seem a far cry from irrigation to 
politics, but in truth it is never a far cry to 
politics anywhere on this side the water. In 
every condition and phase of life there is to 
be found the influence of politics — in their 
too common guise the curse of this fair land. 
At this hour quite a little furore is raging 
anent the publication in a well-known Eastern 
magazine of testimony by public - school 
teachers, going to prove how hopelessly they 
are at the mercy of the professional politician, 
and if they, how much more their luckless 
pupils ! The wiseacres, many of whom 
have for years been blindly extolling a public- 
school system which to the humble observer 
long since acquainted with its ways, devious 
and corrupt, and its results, poor and unsatis- 
factory, looked amazingly imperfect — these 
wiseacres are now wailing and crying : ' How 
can such things be in a free country ?' But 
they are, and have been for years, and their 
sudden unearthing is the result of a slowly 
growing dissatisfaction on the part of the 
best citizens, not perhaps with the system, 



88 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

but with its workings. The fact is, that if 
the curse of the country is politics, a still 
worse curse has been the indifference of the 
best citizens to politics. I say 'has been,' for 
a brighter day is dawning, and the enlight- 
ened voter of the Eastern cities, who in the 
past has so often declined to go to the polls 
because it isn't worth while — his one vote won't 
stem the dirty tide, and he has no fancy for 
handling pitch — is very slowly, but it is to be 
hoped surely, being relegated to that past. As 
for women of the better sort betraying interest 
in politics, I well remember the shock that ran 
through the assembled company when in the 
first year of my sojourn on this side I failed 
to drop, with the other women, immediately 
out of the conversation when politics came 
to the front. That English politics are not 
necessarily and inevitably defiling, and that 
as a consequence the average Englishwoman 
might feel an interest in the politics of her 
newly-adopted country, was not at that date 
generally understood. Also, the American 
women who were interested were for the 
most part of the howling, woman's-rights, 
would-be-masculine variety. Now that the 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 89 

American woman, as well as man, of culture 
and refinement is awaking to the untold 
value of a lofty standard in matters of civic 
and national importance, and has grasped 
the pitch of politics with the strong hand of 
a genuine patriotism, both find that, if defiling, 
it will wash off, or at least that it does not 
hurt them. The unpleasant fact that the 
awakening feminine interest in politics brings 
prominently into notice the New Woman as 
she ought not to be, often to the further 
defilement of what she claims to purify, must 
be accepted in the spirit which accepts the 
evil with the good. 

As at this writing Western views of things 
still claim eventual ascendancy, with wide- 
spreading consequences to the entire civilized 
world, it may not be uninteresting to know 
what is the dominant Western view. It can 
be summed up in one phrase culled from a 
recent speech of one of the West's great 
men : ' What's the use of paying attention 
to foreign countries, any way ? We're big 
enough to do as we please.' 

To such crude schoolboy utterances as the 
above, the Many- Headed, maddened by long 



90 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

financial depression, the result of causes it 
cannot or is not permitted to understand, 
pins its faith. That the serious-minded men 
of the Far East anticipated with perhaps un- 
necessary anxiety a Western victory at the 
last Presidential election was scarcely sur- 
prising. It is also not surprising that in 
these years of perplexity, when the wisest 
go astray, seeking in vain for the right path, 
the question of Universal Suffrage, disposed 
of generations since as a question, and set 
away on a pedestal beyond the meddling 
fingers of irreverent sceptics, should be taken 
down once more, handled and turned over 
even by some of its most ardent devotees. 
Now, with a matter to decide which calls 
not only for a liberal and cultivated intelli- 
gence — Weltbildung, in short, in its most 
comprehensive sense — but also for intimate 
knowledge of finance, the multitude is never- 
theless legally permitted to render a decision. 
Reductio ad absurdum indeed ! 

On the other hand, there is a strong and 
growing feeling that the complications of 
electoral machinery in this country prevent 
the true expression of the opinion of the 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 91 

people, and that the Federal Government, 
considered as a representative Government, 
is a failure, more or less. To the outsider, 
who is popularly supposed to see most of 
the game, the astonishing thing about these 
apparently opposing, but in truth perfectly 
reconcilable, sentiments is that they should 
have been so laggard in manifesting them- 
selves. The causes, however, for those who 
know the country, are not far to seek. A 
natural reluctance to question or disturb in- 
stitutions religiously designed not merely for 
a young country's own enlightenment, but 
as lights to lighten the darkness of effete 
monarchies, is one cause, and not an un- 
important one. 

The arguments of the Free Silverites, set 
forth on street corners, isolated ranches, and 
where not, but rarely unheard in the Territory, 
are as restricted as is the view of the painter 
who, for the purpose of confining his sketch 
within artistic limits, cuts him a small circle 
of pasteboard, and through this peephole 
makes the necessary observations. Outside 
of this limited radius he sees nothing. 
Admitting the possibility that the Free 



92 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Silverite may eventually be 'on top,' the 
Gold -bug — and especially during the late 
campaign — earnestly endeavoured to limit 
his vision in the same manner. For months 
he steadily perused the organs of the Silverites, 
lent a willing ear to eloquent harangues of 
neighbours, abandoned his reason to the im- 
passioned speeches of Convention speakers. 
All in vain. Fallacies so patent as to appeal 
only to the ignorant formed the foundation 
of the addresses of these ' silver-tongued ' 
orators. The Gold-bug, still in that dread 
of the inevitable, clung to a desperate and 
forlorn hope that fallacies might yet be found 
to have bottom enough to uphold a huge 
country struggling in the throes of protracted 
financial distress ; but this was hope, not 
conviction. Now and then a working man 
arose, and in strong and ringing words called 
on his fellow-workmen to pause, to bethink 
them — set before them in lucid argument 
the fate which would be theirs should silver 
become the coin of the democracy, and 
pierced the wind-bags of Free Silverite 
oratory with the home-driving nails of stern 
fact. To what avail ? Although, as has 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 93 



been sapiently remarked in the columns of 
an Eastern paper of repute, no one knows 
what the people's favourite orator meant, or 
indeed means now, by his oft- repeated figures 
of speech, still, when shouted forth by a man 
with waving hair and upturned eyes, they 
strike everybody who is dissatisfied with the 
way the world is moving as the very soul of 
eloquence. The American people have been 
dissatisfied for a long while. Spoiled by 
prosperity, they have revelled for years in 
reckless extravagance, public and private, 
and now are endeavouring to lay the blame 
of present conditions anywhere but at the 
door of national thriftlessness ; yet no one 
with any powers of observation can deny 
that this extravagance has as much to answer 
for as those wider international issues and 
events which are almost equally overlooked. 
It has been well said that the intelligent and 
upright American farmer would indignantly 
refute the accusation that he desired to 
repudiate the nation's debts of honour, if 
he knew whither his straying feet were lead- 
ing him. That is true enough ; the trouble 
was that during the electoral campaign he 



94 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

had lost his head, and was no longer re- 
sponsible for his feet. That he would regain 
it before November, and lend his ear to 
plain solid facts rather than to flamboyant 
oratory, was the belief of those who pro- 
fessed to understand him, and from the 
Gold-bug's point of view this belief has 
been proved to be well founded. Never- 
theless, the assertion that the Republican 
victory at the polls was a sweeping one is 
not borne out by facts or figures. The 
enormous influence exerted in favour of the 
gold standard by what is called the Foreign 
Vote is in few instances accorded its full 
measure of consideration, and, more signifi- 
cant still, the Free Silverites are undaunted 
by defeat, and continue hard at work. There 
were hundreds of persons who held the 
opinion before the election, and hold it to 
this hour, that the two Presidential candi- 
dates offered only a choice of evils — a choice 
betwixt anarchy, national dishonour, the over- 
throw of the Constitution, and a prolonged 
period of financial depression on the one 
hand ; on the other, a renewal of wasteful 
expenditure, force and tariff bills, pension 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 95 

jobs, and kindred iniquities. Neither can 
it be said that all this is past history. We 
are now but turning the first page of an era 
eventful not only for this great country, but 
for all civilized nations. Vainly do the 
Western politicians declare that the United 
States can go forward on her own course, 
paying no heed to the other great peoples 
of the world. Nations, like men, cannot 
stand or fall to themselves. The shrieks 
which rend our Western welkin are pitiful 
in their ignorance and narrowness of view. 
' We won't do as European nations do ' — 
such is the reiterated scream of the Western 
demagogue, a small child in a rage— 'we 
won't ! we wont ! we wont /' Meantime the 
genuine patriot and statesman reviews the 
scenes which took place at the Democratic 
Convention at Chicago, and exclaims in 
despair : ' But this is mob law !' — which it is. 
The people in these latter days is violently 
partisan. It regales itself with the illiberal 
and virulent local, or, at best, strictly Western 
and one-sided, newspaper. The idea of read- 
ing the other side never enters its head ; and 
it is marvellous, for such a wide-awake, in- 



96 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

telligent people, with what trash it doth satisfy 
its soul ! But it is an excitable people, and 
oratory is beloved of it ; and it never pauses 
to consider significant revelations — such, for 
instance, as that which proved the most 
notorious expounder of the Free Silver 
doctrine to be a resolute and prudent Gold- 
bug in his private business, and other minor 
details. Nevertheless, it is maintained by 
those who know that the American people 
can always be trusted to come to its senses, 
given due time. This is as it may be. Should, 
however, the event not justify the prophecy, 
one would like, if possible, to become a 
convert to the inevitable, for considerations 
involving personal comfort. 

There is another matter which English- 
men settling in the South or West are wholly 
unprepared for, and naturally so, seeing that 
the Eastern paper which finds its way across 
the Atlantic steadily ignores it, and that is the 
strength of the sectional feeling. What is 
more, so far as the West is concerned, it is 
growing, and there is a threat in its growth. 

Union, peaceful and assured for ever, is 
inscribed as one of the shibboleths of the 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 97 

North and East. A bland and indulgent 
smile is the sole reply vouchsafed to anyone 
venturing to suggest the possibility of future 
rude shaking, if no worse, of the uniting 
bonds. In the days when my home was in 
the South, I was firmly assured by Northerners 
— profoundly ignorant as they were then, and 
are, in large measure, to this day, of the inner 
workings of Southern life and feeling — that 
sectionalism was dead and buried in the 
Southern States. I permitted myself a lifting 
of the eyebrows, but kept silence. If, in 
their desire for a consummation devoutly to 
be desired, they were anticipating events, 
why ruffle their calm by bringing forward 
proofs and statements which in all probability 
would not be credited ? — on the same principle 
that those who are acquainted with a foreign 
country only on hearsay are prone to claim a 
more profound knowledge of the subject than 
he who has lived in that country for years. 
The untravelled Englishman and the un- 
travelled American make themselves almost 
equally ridiculous in this respect, though the 
palm for absurdity must in fairness be awarded 
to the inhabitants of our own tight little isle. 

7 



98 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

As late as the well - advanced eighties, 
twenty years and more after the Civil War, 
a Northern friend, teaching in a Southern 
Sunday-school, received the following answer 
to the question, ' Who is our ghostly enemy ?' 
1 The Yankee, ma'am.' The answer came 
pat and prompt from the exceedingly juvenile 
son of a man himself scarcely old enough to 
have carried a musket in the sixties. My 
Northern friend and I were discoursing on 
the strength of sectional feeling in the South, 
and she brought forward this anecdote as 
one of many proofs of that strength. It is 
difficult for me to believe that the resentment 
and antagonism rampant in the South in my 
day has entirely passed away. The North 
never has fully appreciated the sense of injury 
— born of cruelties and injustice which, how- 
ever necessary, were at once horrible and 
irreparable — left by the war, any more than 
she appreciates the distinctive national dif- 
ferences existing betwixt, for instance, a 
Virginian or Georgian and a regular ' down- 
easter ' from Maine. Like oil and water, 
they may live in peace, but they will never 
assimilate. 



'.UJI .J.l ' ' . I l » J II .U I I . I U-INIL, ..--.J -JJ I .IJ. rM . 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 99 

A certain amount of bigotry is indispens- 
able to the life of great undertakings. The 
typical New Englander, as he was represented 
in the ranks of the Abolitionists, and as he 
is to this day, was, and is, a person of one 
idea. True it is that his enthusiasm is usually 
exerted in a good cause ; but as he fights his 
way, blind and deaf, towards his goal, the 
course behind him lies strewn thick with 
blunders and mishaps. It is not too much 
to say that the bitter sectional feeling, dying 
so hard a death in the South, owes much of 
its persistency to the stubborn unwillingness 
of New Englanders, and more particularly of 
New England women, to be learners in what 
was to them the unknown land of the South, 
before starting forth to be therein preachers 
and teachers. 

The peculiar conditions of Southern life, 
its unique mental atmosphere, the cause and 
effect of its existence, so to speak, have never 
been thoroughly understood by those who 
may almost be said to belong to another race, 
so antipathetic are the inhabitants of these 
widely-sundered sections. The South it was 
that had to pay for the mistakes of an earnest 
LtfU 7—2 



ioo OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

and well-intentioned philanthropy, whose 
successes, when they arrived, were earned at 
great cost to all concerned. And nowhere 
did the inevitable blunders of those, whose 
philanthropy believes that it has nothing to 
learn in the midst of new conditions, produce 
more intense bitterness than in matters con- 
cerning the negro. The impartial observer, 
passing back and forth betwixt North and 
South, soon discovers that the South is the 
natural home of the negro, and that it is 
there alone he is thoroughly understood and 
receives the truest affection and kindness. 
It is in the North, generally speaking, that 
he is found at his worst ; his attractive quali- 
ties — those qualities that give him distinction 
and individuality — more largely in abeyance, 
his most contemptible characteristics of con- 
ceit and monkeyish imitativeness more largely 
in evidence. He is no more the darkey we 
have learned to love, and who loves us ; he 
is offensive, or merely ridiculous. This is, I 
acknowledge, generalizing with a vengeance ; 
but these pages being no place for a treatise 
on the negro, generalization must serve for 
the present. It would be easy, no doubt, 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 101 

to dwell on those exceptional negroes who 
have shown themselves capable of something 
higher than servile imitation of a superior 
race, as it would be easy to enlarge on the 
errors of a book which set the Northern 
world on fire, which owed much of its success 
to the fact that both author and readers had 
never penetrated beyond the outermost rim 
of Southern life, and which sowed seeds of 
as bitter a feeling as the world has ever seen 
— a feeling which to this day, whatever may 
be said to the contrary by those unacquainted 
with the actual truth, still maintains its vitality. 
It was but recently that further proof, if 
further proof were wanted, was presented to 
me regarding the still existing ignorance, in 
certain portions of the North, of Southern 
modes of thought. Duelling has been prac- 
tised even in Virginia during my residence 
in that State ; and I have heard more than 
one Southern man declare that nothing but 
stringent States laws stamped out the custom 
— that the sentiment in favour of it was very 
far from dead. Be this as it may, certain 
occurrences falling under my immediate ob- 
servation are by no means opposed to this 



102 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

declaration ; and yet a few weeks since a 
Boston paper gave vent to the following 
somewhat amazing utterance : ' It is not easy 
for Americans to understand the depth, and 
even violence, of feeling with which this 
foolish and demoralizing custom is defended 
by intelligent and well-meaning men.' It is 
allowable, under the circumstances, to inquire 
if Southerners are not ' Americans.' Granted 
that the inclination towards settling ' points 
of honour ' by means of single combat is 
now, in the South, a thing of the past, that 
same past is but a few short years old. And 
even if it be conceded that the formal duel is 
abolished, such abolition by no means in- 
cludes the not uncommon habit still prevalent 
of ' shooting on sight ' — and shooting, more- 
over, with intent to kill. 

Late political agitations have shown a 
tendency in the South to follow the lead 
of the West, and in doing so it certainly 
travels far from its ancient enemy, but of late 
years nominal friend. The lack of sympathy 
between the Far Easterner and the Westerner 
is a thing to marvel at — for the new-comer 
to the West. He may, indeed, be pardoned 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 103 

for wondering whether the union of such 
heterogeneous and often antagonistic material 
can endure for ever. And into the midst of 
his speculations was hurled the cyclone of the 
Democratic Convention of the year of grace 
i8q6. # 

Abuse of the East may be diverting at 
first, but waxes tiresome by dint of constant 
iteration. Of course, everyone knows that 
the Western editor, anxious to ' scare up ' 
subscribers, must not be taken too literally 
(after the much-decried and ridiculed English 
manner); nevertheless, when during the Ven- 
ezuelan folly editors in ' the wild and woolly ' 
howled for England to come along and blow 
the Eastern seaboard cities into eternity, 
sectional feeling might well be requested to 
call a halt. The language of those editors, 
by-the-by, was decidedly more virile than as 
quoted ; but let that pass. During the height 
of the Free Silver agitation a citizen of Utah 
exclaimed to an Eastern acquaintance, ' Why, 
sir, if the cause of Free Silver is defeated, 

* Since these words were written, that which many 
persons have long believed to be the sole panacea for 
internal dissension and discontent has arrived — namely, 
a foreign war. 



104 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

every able-bodied man in the State of Utah 
will take up arms and defy the East!' In 
response to this martial declaration, the en- 
thusiast was gently reminded that the able- 
bodied men in the entire State of Utah were 
not equal in number to those contained in 
one city of ' the effete East.' 

The ignorance of one section of this 
country concerning another is, as before 
hinted, a surprise to the immigrant ; but it is 
something he would do better to understand 
in advance, for it has to be reckoned with. 
Americans are indeed extensive travellers, 
and shrewd and observant beyond the 
common wav of men ; but their travelling 
in their own land lies very much in beaten 
tracks, and it is a truism to remark that what 
a man learns before he makes his home in a 
section, and what he learns after, are wide 
as the poles asunder — too wide sometimes 
for comfort. Authors and literary people 
generally are not a little to blame for sectional 
ignorance — publishers also, if the truth were 
known. I was visiting once in a Southern 
city, and found myself in a room full, as it 
chanced, of Virginians. I ventured the re- 
mark that I had never read a novel dealing 



IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 105 

with Southern life that gave any idea of the 
life as I knew it, and my home had been in 
Virginia, with Virginians, for a long term of 
years ; and I went on to mention in par- 
ticular the works of a noted authoress, whose 
writings are accepted by Northern people as 
absolutely realistic in regard to life in the 
South. My somewhat hesitating remarks 
were greeted with a perfect storm of approval 
and agreement. 

And when I speak of part of the blame 
for inaccurate representation lying with 
Northern publishers, I have in mind the 
case of a friend who wrote a novel, of which 
the local colour was Southern, the author 
having the best of rights to be familiar with 
that colouring, and which was warmly com- 
mended by Southern friends for its accuracy. 
It was submitted to a well-known Northern 
publishing firm, was read and passed with 
favourable comments by four of the firm's 
readers. The fifth, however, drew attention 
to certain ' inaccuracies ' in dialect and local 
colour. Now, as no ' inaccuracies ' existed, 
according to the best Southern judges, it was 
impossible for the author to make the de- 
sired alterations, and the manuscript was 



106 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

withdrawn in preference. When it was dis- 
covered later that the critical fifth reader had 
never been South in her life, the author 
experienced a pardonable self-gratulation. 
No doubt this is the plan on which many 
Southern books are published — corrected to 
suit the Northern reading public's idea of 
what Southern life, habits, and customs 
should be, and in nine cases out of ten 
are not. 

With a ranchwoman's life such matters as 
politics and sectionalism may seem to have 
little to do ; but unless she spends year after 
year shut up within the narrow confines of an 
1 English set ' — which surely no person in full 
enjoyment of his or her senses would desire 
to do— these and other public questions touch 
her at all sorts of unexpected points. To live 
in a rapidly-moving, progressive country, and 
not be of it — to exist without interchange of 
ideas or the formation of friendships with 
its people — would indeed be a cramped and 
wretched existence ; and it is in the doing of 
these things that we discover how, more 
perhaps in this country than in any other, 
public and private questions are inextricably 
mingled. 



[ io7 ] 



CHAPTER V. 



Nothing is more absurd than the classifica- 
tion of Southern New Mexico among tropical 
climes. Yet I can bear actual witness to 
such mental aberrations. Perhaps the worst 
slip of the kind is perpetrated in an elaborate 
pamphlet issued by a Michigan sanatorium of 
high repute, whose duty it is to avoid mis- 
leading statements. 

The fact is that no fruit, flower, nut, or 
vegetable exists with us if requiring for 
that existence unbroken mildness of climate. 
Sunshine at an altitude of 3,800 feet above 
sea-level, and even if perpetual, does not 
imply perpetual warmth. Stinging winter 
nights, during which the thermometer is 
occasionally reduced to a few degrees above 
zero, prohibit all dreams of the tropics ; and 



io8 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

though after the sun has risen in his wonted 
power and glory a leap of 30 to 40 degrees 
is a common occurrence, I have never yet 
seen the thermometer over 75 (in the shade), 
and that but rarely ; whereas in Virginia, for 
instance, and in the mountains too, I have 
day after day seen the thermometer stand 
at 76 during several hours of a mid-winter 
day, and this in a climate where a nightly 
temperature of 10 degrees below zero is not 
a myth. Yet the winter climate of this 
section is as superior to that of Virginia, or 
of Southern California, as that of these two 
States is to the winter climate of Vermont. 
Here one brilliant day succeeds another with 
little variation. Weather comes in the shape 
of a stray wind or so, or a very occasional 
rain or light snow-fall. Our winter warmth 
is due entirely to the force of the suns rays 
shining through an atmosphere unimpeded 
by fog or damp, for the fogs of Southern 
California are unknown here, as are its hor- 
rible ' northers.' 

In California, too, one sits in the winter 
sunshine and feels overheated and relaxed, 
moves on into the shade to creep and shiver, 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 109 

and, if one is sensitive, to take 'a California 
cold,' which is so hard to get rid of. In fact, to 
a skin-sensitive person — a form of sensitive- 
ness which, I am assured, is more common 
with invalids whose lungs are sound than 
with regular i lungers ' — there is no point of 
comparison betwixt this climate and that of 
Southern California, so far ahead is ours. 
Nothing is more astonishing to the delicate 
person than the cautions whispered into his 
ears by the Oldest Inhabitant of 'the most 
favoured State in the Union.' It is not safe 
1 in this climate ' to do things which are done 
with impunity every day in New Mexico. 
One is warned against sitting in the shade in 
summer (the heat of the sun being never- 
theless unbearable), against sitting out even 
in the sun in winter, against wearing light 
clothing at any season, against a dozen and 
one performances which are a matter of 
course elsewhere. 

Life becomes very tiresome by reason of 
so many precautions, and in spite of a con- 
scientious observance of them all, the sensi- 
tive person — many delicate individuals are 
not sensitive, by -the -by — takes one deep 



no OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

cold after another. There is an insidious, 
lurking dampness in the climate which can 
be easily proved, but to which the bare 
brown hills of two-thirds of the year appar- 
ently give the lie. The dripping, nightly 
fogs or heavy dews, together with the 
absence of tonic quality in the atmosphere, 
are no doubt responsible for many of the 
complaints one hears. The Los Angeles 
fogs, which have at length become notorious, 
are backed by a yearly record of twenty-seven 
inches of rain. Compared with England or 
the Middle West, no doubt the climate of 
California does well enough, but not so well, 
in spite of its flowers and oranges, when 
compared with that of New Mexico, or even 
of Virginia. It is as treacherous as a cat. 
Added to all this is another trouble : comfort 
is almost unknown. 

4 People don't know how to live in Cali- 
fornia !' exclaimed a prominent medical man 
at a Pacific coast health-resort. 

1 The sin of unheated houses in winter,' 
writes another, ' is one that will, as it ought 
to do, haunt some Californians who think 
they mean to be very good. Their mode of 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY m 



living in this particular is constructive suicide, 
if not constructive murder.' 

1 I have never suffered so much from cold 
in my life as I have since coming to Southern 
California !' is quite a common remark made 
by those hailing from New York, New 
England, and even Manitoba. 

In Southern New Mexico we make no 
pretences. We light good fires, and keep 
ourselves warm nights and mornings, or, in 
fact, whenever we are likely to feel cold. 
The people of Southern California sit around 
shivering in fireless houses, bundled up in 
shawls, waiting for their sun — which, unlike 
ours, rarely rises in an absolutely cloudless sky 
— to warm them. Yet competent physicians 
declare that in no climate are fires needed 
more than in that of the Land of Flowers, 
on account of the lurking damp in the air 
and the apparently trifling, yet in reality 
serious, variations of the temperature from 
day to day. Overheated by necessary 
clothing and the warmth of the sun, one 
enters a house as cold as a vault ; the con- 
sequences need not be described. The 
absence of an honest, stimulating cold affects 



ii2 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

other forms of life besides that of the human. 
Fleas abound ; mosquitoes provide torturing 
concerts. It is true that vegetables are 
grown all the year round in the open air, 
but, like the apples and peaches, they have 
little flavour ; even the nuts are insipid. At 
the same time, the climate of California ought 
to be paradise to the newly-arrived English- 
man ; strange to relate, he is one of the worst 
of the grumblers. 

In New Mexico, to sit in the winter sun- 
shine is to bask healthfully. This does not 
imply that there is no difference betwixt 
shade and sunshine with us ; on the contrary, 
the difference is strongly accentuated. But 
in this dry, aseptic, bracing atmosphere, and 
at such an altitude, there is no relaxation of 
the system, and, in consequence, compara- 
tively little susceptibility to atmospheric 
variations. The astonishing leaps the ther- 
mometer is capable of making betwixt a 
winter sunrise and its noon is looked on by 
progressive physicians as being not only 
beneficial to consumptives, but almost essen- 
tial to their improvement, implying as it does 
a strong tonic and bracing influence, com- 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 113 

bined with the important factor of excessive 
dryness. Whether these leaps are equally 
beneficial to those delicate persons who are 
not afflicted with lung trouble, and whose 
duties compel them to expose themselves to 
the morning cold, is not so certain. To 
stand out and feed chickens, and direct the 
starting of farm work, at 7.45 a.m. is just a 
trifle trying ; although, as before remarked, 
the most sensitive persons lose in great 
degree their propensity to cold-catching in 
this grand climate — often to resume it, how- 
ever, on returning to less favoured climes. 

Let me repeat, with emphasis, that if any 
person imagines that in coming to New 
Mexico he is coming to the tropics, he is 
singularly deluded. But though there exists 
no paradise on earth, the climate of this 
section approaches as nearly to paradise as 
any earthly clime may. 

The winters are short, and though the 
nights continue cold to cool till late in the 
spring — indeed, often well into the summer — 
fires can be dispensed with except morning 
and evening after early in March. There 
are many mid-winter days, besides, on which 

8 



U4 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

the nuisance of the winter fire can be banished 
from the mind — an advantage not to be de- 
spised in a land where the trained domestic 
is not, and fuel is scarce and costly. 

The wide, radiant sunshine of this region 
comes less as a surprise to one who has 
tarried long under beneficent American skies 
than to one fresh from the old country. 
Even in unfairly abused New York a care- 
fully-kept weather diary records as follows : 

For December = 21 whole days of unbroken sunshine. 
For January = 20^- ,, „ 

For February =12 „ „ 

For March = 17 „ „ 

Not a bad showing for a by no means 
exceptional winter. And the statement 
commonly made in various sections of the 
United States, i.e., that winter rarely sets in 
before Christmas, is very fairly accurate. 

Whilst ' falling weather ' of any kind seldom 
comes our way — -j^ of an inch being hailed 
late in June further north as practically the 
first rainfall for the year — we do have what 
goes by the name of the Rainy Season, 
furnished with what importance it may in- 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 115 

trinsically lack by the use of capitals.* One 
would scarcely go so far as to say that during 
the Rainy Season it invariably rains, but 
usually it does. This ' weather ' descends 
in the form of thunderstorms in July or 
August, and, in all probability, a rain during 
the September equinox. Occasionally such 
showers are sufficiently heavy to do more 
harm than good in a section of which the 
inhabitants are rarely prepared for wet 
weather, their vaunted Rainy Season to the 
contrary notwithstanding. The water races 
down from the mountains, cutting channels 
for itself both deep and broad, sweeping 
everything before it, Mexican mud- daubers' 
nests included. The inadequate haystack of 
the country suffers, and the wail of the un- 
ready goes up to an indifferent heaven, once 
more blue and smiling. 

If it were possible for me to describe the 

* Rainfall (Altitude 3,800 Feet). 

1892 - - - 6*47 inches. 

1893 - - io-gi 

1894 - - 4-47 „ 

1895 - " 9'46 „ 

1896 - - 7 '99 „ 

8—2 



n6 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

beauty of the Fall — that expressive word for 
which autumn is so poor and meaningless an 
equivalent — I would do so; but it is not. 
English people, however, who have ever 
abandoned their own clammy October and 
November in order to test the same across 
the Atlantic, can form some notion of what it 
is here in New Mexico. A world painted in 
blue or gold — an atmosphere so exhilarating 
that no amount of malaise or worry can 
render one who breathes it utterly insensible 
to its charms — and, at the same time, each 
day as it rolls by so unvarying in its per- 
fection that to sit, walk, ride, or drive, 
whether in sun or shade, is alike delightful 
and desirable. In short, whatever you choose 
to do, the weather will endorse your choice 
as being exactly the right one. And this 
weather sometimes endures for months, and 
always for weeks. 

Then is the sportsman abroad in the valley, 
hunting the crested quail, and the jack rabbit 
lengthens his already monstrous bounds, 
fleeing for his life ; and camping -parties 
betake themselves to the mountains in search 
of higher game — deer, and even bear ; and 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 117 

' bear stories ' are the order of the evenings 
spent around the roaring fires of cottonwood 
or cedar. 

Spring in the Land of Perpetual Sunshine 
meets, of course, with a less joyful greeting 
than in gloomier climes. Nevertheless, when 
the acequias brim with the brown and rushing 
flood, and the orchards flush with colour and 
resound with song, and the winter world casts 
off its mantle of drab, and rises to meet the 
advancing year and be made by it a thing of 
naught — well, we have Spring indeed, but 
Spring performing only half her functions, 
where there is no snow to be melted, no 
sodden earth to be dried, no misty skies to 
be swept clear. 

Also there are the winds to be reckoned 
with. On first making a home in the Arid 
Belt, one is informed that the wind blows only 
at certain seasons of the year, and that its 
velocity, although apparently great, is not, in 
fact, comparable with that attained by it in 
other parts of the Far or Middle West. The 
charts supplied show the wind-rate of El Paso, 
a city on the Texas border, only forty miles 
distant, and possessing a climate almost 



n8 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

identical with our own, to be considerably 
less than that of Denver, Colorado, San 
Francisco, California, or even San Antonio, 
the great health resort of Texas. Cyclones 
and blizzards never visit us. Having said all 
this, it is proper to add that our wind is 
extremely disagreeable, nay, hateful, and that 
it bloweth at any season, when and where it 
listeth, though without resulting damage to 
man, beast, or crop. Allowing that spring is 
its most favoured season, summer and fall its 
least favoured, I have, nevertheless, known a 
lamblike March and April and a rowdy, 
blustering May. The wind is not to be 
relied on, though it must inevitably be 
reckoned with. Months may go by without 
one rude puff, and then it may rage cease- 
lessly for days, calming itself only at night. 
Consolation is to be sought in the knowledge 
that it brings neither rain, damp, nor languor 
in its train, and that, on the contrary, it acts 
as a wholesome, if disagreeable, purifier and 
disinfectant. 

The summers are, as summers should be, 
hot. This characteristic is not peculiar to 
the season in Southern New Mexico, but is 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 119 

common to every inland section of this vast 
country, except to certain mountain resorts 
to which people betake themselves for the 
pleasure, we presume, of being able to tell 
their friends that they were obliged either to 
kindle a fire in August or else freeze to death. 
Doubtful summer joys both, methinks. The 
month of June is the hot month. About the 
30th thunderstorms may be looked for ; and 
throughout July and August, while the death- 
rate swells higher and higher in the sweltering 
Middle West and in the Eastern cities, here 
only the hypercritical can find cause for 
complaint. But, then, there are persons who 
are seeking paradise on earth ; and they are 
still seeking. 

Sunstrokes and prostration from heat are 
unheard of with us. Therefore, when we 
read of this form of suffering occurring in 
England when the thermometer is only 'in 
the vicinity of 80' — in our clime a delicious 
and health -giving temperature — we realize 
more than ever the aseptic and invigorating 
qualities of the atmosphere we daily breathe. 
And no matter to what height the thermometer 
may rise later, the morning hours are in- 



120 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

variably fresh and sparkling. Indeed, I have 
stood at noon watering stock in the broiling 
sun (and no one who has had no experience 
in this direction knows the infinite leisureliness 
of the drinking animal), having to mark time 
with my feet to keep them off the red-hot 
ground, and suddenly up has come the 
vivifying breeze of these latitudes, and, hey 
presto ! I am cool — nay, almost cold. Con- 
sequently the same given temperature East 
and West implies probably twenty degrees of 
difference in one's feelings. However hot 
it may be here, no sense of relaxation or 
languor — provided, of course, that a person 
be in tolerable health- — is ever experienced. 
It goes without saying that the average 
English person has to learn how to live in 
a warm climate ; to abandon his beloved 
' flannels/ for instance, to eat less meat, and 
to acquire the art of keeping his house cool. 
Open doors and windows, and a great many 
of them, he will gradually repent of as a 
bitter mistake — only gradually, no doubt, for 
our race is a pertinacious one, and is pro- 
verbially reluctant to do at Rome as the 
Romans do. 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 121 

An old Spanish house built of adobe — i.e., 
bricks made of wet clay and straw, run into 
a mould, and then turned out to bake in the 
sun — with walls of from two and a half to 
three feet thick, is the very acme of comfort. 
The bare idea of having ever again to live 
in any other kind of a house, once having 
enjoyed an adobe, presents itself as a woeful 
prospect. Those who, for the sake of 
worshipping the little tin god called Style, 
build them mansions of brick or wood live to 
rue (in secret) the error of their ways, or else 
have never lived in an adobe. To remove, 
either in hot or cold weather, from a clay 
house to one of brick is to receive an object- 
lesson not easily to be forgotten ; words are 
rendered at once and for ever superfluous. 
The adobe house, then, with its ponderous 
walls and windows, sufficient in number to let 
in the winter sunshine without admitting too 
much of the summer heat, is an abode for 
the gods — provided the gods do not admit 
to their circle the little tin travesty afore- 
mentioned, and are also willing to risk the 
possibility of a volume of muddy water 
pouring through the flat ' dirt ' roof when the 



122 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Rainy Season comes along. But the gods 
can make them an American roof, should 
their patience or philosophy give out — which 
roof, if painted a deep crimson, adds to, rather 
than detracts from, the picturesqueness of 
their dwelling. For adobe houses are pic- 
turesque ; not only so, but they adjust them- 
selves admirably to the requirements of the 
landscape ; and should the day ever arrive 
when American enterprise sweeps them from 
the face of Nature, the beauty which abides in 
harmony, as well as the solid comfort of the 
citizen, will depart with them. To draughts, 
that bugbear of the sensitive, their heavy 
walls and deep-set windows are impervious. 
The bedroom of the invalid, interpenetrated 
by the radiant winter sunlight, becomes a 
sun-parlour of the choicest. In summer our 
adobe, its windows protected by Venetian, or, 
as we call them, outside blinds, its roof 
sheltered by the widespreading arms of the 
cottonwood - tree, is a veritable palace of 
delight. 

Noxious beasts are not numerous, venomous 
ones few. Of the noxious variety, the 
American housefly stands easily first, both 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 123 

in point of numbers and ferocity. All over 
this broad land — east, west, north, and south 
— there have we to sit down with him in 
hateful and familiar association. To be ap- 
preciated, however, he must be known, this 
American fly. In summer, by dint of screened 
doors and windows and shaded apartments, 
we can in a measure control his visitations ; 
though even then he lingers on the porches 
ready to follow on the heels of every entering 
guest, and once within to lay waste, devour, 
and destroy — temper and peace of mind in- 
cluded — as only a fly can. Strange to say, 
the agile flea seldom darkens our doors, and 
the hum of the mosquito is heard only in 
occasional seasons, when the river waxes 
riotous, and water lingers in the acequias or 
overflows their banks. Snakes are common 
enough ; but though they writhe and hiss, 
and stand up on their hinder parts and give 
us bad dreams, they are, the most of them, 
harmless, though hot-tempered. Some of 
these big brownery-greenery snakes are ex- 
cellent mousers, and, as mice are our constant 
torments here, I persuaded myself, after much 
travail of spirit, to permit one such snake to 



124 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



make my store-room his home. I have no 
doubt that some people might find both in- 
struction and amusement in this association. 
I experience neither ; I endure. Lizards and 
horned frogs abound. The latter are amusing 
little beasts. They seem to like having their 
backs scratched with a stick, and, if too rudely 
accosted, prove themselves to be past-masters 
in the art of simulating death. Once I met 
a tarantula at my front-door, but only once. 
He is dead now. He was a terrific beast, 
and I am free to own that my spirit quailed 
within me. I will not attempt to say how 
large he was, for I should promptly be accused 
of exaggeration ; though to exaggerate the 
size of these nightmares of spiders would 
really seem to be impossible. Certain learned 
Eastern professors claim that the bite of 
neither tarantula nor centipede — another oc- 
casional guest with us — is harmful. That is 
as it may be. No Texan could be found to 
agree to this verdict, although it is generally 
acknowledged that the Texas variety of both 
beasts is considerably more virulent than the 
variety living in New Mexico. 

Lovely and beloved as all our seasons are 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 125 

to us who dwell in closest fellowship with 
them, it is in the winter that the health- 
seeking visitor seeks and knows us, and for 
him that boarding-houses and hostelry spread 
wide their doors. Winter is our trump card, 
then. Granted. Nevertheless, for me the 
early summer, when my low brown house 
draws around itself, day by day, a denser veil 
of greenery, and sinks back, like the swooning 
fair one of our great-grandmother's favourite 
novel, into the arms of cottonwood and locust 
trees ; and the little roses of New Mexico 
run riot, and the drab alfalfa fields and the 
brown orchards drown by inches in the rising 
emerald sea ; and the mocking-birds, noisy 
rascals, shout night and day ; and the ever- 
lasting blue of the sky takes a paler, tenderer 
hue, into which azure bath, as the heat-wave 
surges along the valley, the mountains plunge 
their craggy heads, retiring day by day further 
and further into the land of dreams. Then 
it is that, noon-tide drawing near, the olive- 
tinged mesa decks itself transiently in ribbons 
of gold and black as the summer clouds roll 
through high heaven, leaving in their passing 
swift-fading memories on those mountains' 



126 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



rock-bound sides. And morning after morn- 
ing under the climbing sun, and evening after 
evening as the moon sails up over the lonely 
peaks or the stars creep out solitary, a breeze 
like the cool foam ' of perilous seas ' in some 
* faeryland forlorn ' scatters its vivifying drops 
upon the heated face of the valley, and we 
live and move and breathe the breath of life 
as those whose tents are pitched nearer sea- 
level can never do. Ours is the Arid Belt ; 
but ours, too, is the keen pure air of un- 
trodden desert and mountain. 

It is the habit of the comfortable and 
prosperous to declare that everything has its 
compensations, and for once the comfortable 
and prosperous are right, though prating after 
their manner of that of which they know 
nothing — nothing of the leagues of desert 
solitude — or of the gray Atlantic, no friendly 
sail in sight. 

For, in truth, there is but little neighbour- 
liness in Nature here. Even at her best 
and fairest she retains her remoteness, her 
indifference. Yet we know that it is here 
that Nature, in spite of herself, enters into 
our heart of hearts. She who would not 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 127 

appeal has appealed. In her often wild and 
always mournful beauty, she is as the em- 
bodiment of all the sorrows of the world. We 
turn from her in vain ; we look and look again. 

And yet, early some June morning, stand 
with me at the head of this long, five-deep 
regiment of giant Russian sunflowers, all 
with radiant faces lifted eastward. The gold- 
flecked vista closes in a wealth of green — 
the heavy, rounded masses of the umbrella- 
tree, the airy feathers of the tree of paradise ; 
birds, scarlet flames and scimitars of blue, 
or here and there a yellow flaxbird, leap and 
dart hither and thither. And beyond and 
above all is the azure — the unutterable, the 
unpaintable azure — of Southern sky and 
mountain. Have we no soft loveliness, no 
depth of colour, in the Arid Belt ? 

Or, again, turn now, the hot day waning, 
from the mountains and the eternal mesquite 
and sage-brush of the desert, and gaze from 
the back of the brown clay house athwart 
the long shadows of the levels. Why is this 
landscape so sorrowful ? Peace, stepping 
quietly, should come like an oft-bidden, long- 
delaying guest across these tranquil meadows. 



128 OBSERVATIONS' OF A RANCHWOMAN 

One beyond the other they lie spread, a 
carpet of varied greens, brightening into the 
dazzling shimmer of ripe wheat or pale bands 
of barley, or oftener yet deepening to the 
deep purple of alfalfa ready for the cutting. 
On the ear strikes only the wailing, not 
unmusical cry of the Mexican, urging his 
weary flock to the trampling of the gathered 
sheaves. The eye wanders on and on to 
the river's bank, marked by wavering lines 
of woods, on and up to where the still and 
solemn mesa leans upon the deep-burned sky. 

" How beautiful, but how sad !' exclaims 
the new-comer softly. 

Or it is November, and the brilliant blue 
and golden day hushes itself beneath a dome 
the tint of a sparrow's egg, gilt-edged where 
the sun has sunk. A gray hand steals over 
the valley ; the very cottonwoods cease to 
blaze, and pale from gold to amber. It is 
night, we say ; the bright day is over. And 
then, suddenly, the mountains flash rose-hued 
upon the sight. This is their crowning hour 
of glory. Battlement after battlement, peak 
after peak, catches the unearthly radiance. 
From the veiled and silent valley we watch 



CLIMATE, EVIL BEASTS, SCENERY 129 

with suspended breath, and even as we watch 
the glory passes. Already the mountains' 
feet are dimmed. The veil creeps up and 
up. All is indeed over. Night has come. 

And these sunsets ! But why write of 
them ? Is not their splendour common to 
this whole land, wherever the wide and 
wonderful American sky prevaileth ? In its 
purity, in its lustre, above all, in its height, 
its peer is hardly to be found. For this is 
no ' azure vault,' besung and belauded of the 
conventional poet ; it is a vast immensity, in 
which the eye loses itself and the soul mounts 
secure, on whose lower altars the sunlit days 
are heaped nightly, and whose sacrificial fires 
are a spectacle for gods and men. 

But here, and once more. We rise in the 
night watches, slumber hard to be entreated, 
and look forth on the changeful moonlit spaces 
overswept by the wide-winged shadows of 
the wind-clouds, stealthy visitants from the 
Great Unknown. Silence reigns but for 
the rarely hushed sigh and murmur of the 
Southern summer night ; then of a sudden, 
rushing fearlessly into the stillness and the 
silence, ring out the exultant notes of the 

9 



130 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



mocking-bird in his prime, lord of Love and 
Life, challenging, as it were, the Immutable, 
the Eternal, which answer not. His voice 
breaks, droops among the summer trees, dies 
away in a long, questioning murmur. The 
swift cool breeze tosses the leaves of the 
cottonwood in the round moon's face, and 
swings away across the desert to where the 
untrodden spires of the mountains cleave the 
translucent sky, themselves as remote, as 
indifferent. 

1 What have we to do with thee, O man, and thy day of 
small things !' 

The moments pass solemnly, the hours. 
The bird lifts his wild voice no more. The 
winds pause in their flight ; the darkest hour 
before the dawn is at hand. 

* The cloud-shadows of midnight possess their own repose, 
And the weary winds are silent, and the moon is in 
the deep; 
Some respite from its restlessness unresting ocean knows, 
Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its ap- 
pointed sleep. 
Thou in the grave shalt rest. . . .' 



[ i3i ] 



CHAPTER VI. 

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN. 

Having a little business to transact with a 
ranching neighbour, described as living 
'somewheres near the river,' I set forth one 
July morning between seven and eight o'clock 
in quest of my trading friend ; for we still trade 
and barter here after the primitive manner. 

And just at this point we are brought up 
short in order that we may consider the 
vanity and futility of resolutions. Had it 
not been resolved in the court of my mind 
that never again was I to establish myself in 
a section of which the prevailing sentiment 
expressed in brief was, ' I've got no money, 
but I reckon we can make a trade ' ? And 
then to consume several hours trading for a 
small chicken — to stand out, furthermore, in 
the broiling sun and lend a neighbourly ear 

9—2 



132 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

to the life-history of the trader from the hour 
he was short-coated, inclusive probably (in 
the West) of a recital of the possession of 
great riches and how he came to lose them ! 
This the listener can believe or not, accord- 
ing as he is minded at the time. But per- 
sonal historiettes figure largely in rural 
trading. This bargaining with plain country 
people is not, however, devoid of instructive- 
ness, even if they get the better of us, as 
they mostly do — not perhaps entirely owing 
to superior wit, but rather to a keener zest 
for the business. The milk of human kind- 
ness is somehow not destroyed by this trans- 
parent mode of making something out of 
individuals who ' must be rich because they 
pay their bills.' Nevertheless, a hundred 
times in the past have I cried in my wrath : 
' If ever I farm again, I will try it in the 
Great Progressive West.' And here I am 
in the G.P.W., and history is still engaged 
in repeating itself. 

This, however, is the South-West, and 
therein lies a distinction, if not a difference. 

The morning was cloudy, and there is 
always something weird and uncanny in the 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 133 

veiled sky of the Arid Belt ; or we think that 
there is because we have been spoiled by 
too much sunshine. The deep-rutted track 
winding between tall sunflowers and other 
high - growing weeds of the desert, and 
framing in its twists and turns oft-recurring 
peeps of granite and (to-day) frowning moun- 
tains, was lonely — yes, lonely, in spite of the 
little adobe houses set at intervals in the 
midst of unfenced alfalfa and corn patches. 
The buggy wheels splashed hub-deep through 
long stretches of running water or stagnant 
pools — enough wasted, as I pondered regret- 
fully, to save my wilting corn. Taken alto- 
gether, it was a verdant and beneficent desert 
that morning, inhabited, one would say, by 
a simple and rural population. Yet in such 
rich bottom land as this, holding moisture as 
it does twice as long as land at a greater 
distance from the river, the vineyards and 
orchards common elsewhere should not here 
be conspicuous by their absence. Some of 
this, too, is actually the old river-bed, the 
Rio Grande being partial to changes of 
location. Nevertheless, signs- of careful 
cultivation are few and far between. 



134 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

At last I came to a puzzled halt. Three 
tracks strayed away in various directions, 
one tumbling headlong into a deep arroyo, 
another lunging sideways around a gully, 
and a third pursuing a calm and meander- 
ing course around a corner, and so into a 
leafy retreat of mesquite bushes. It was 
very quiet under the high gray clouds ; not 
a bird stirred or sang — stupefied, we may 
suppose, by the absence of light and radiance. 
A horned toad scooted into the middle of my 
road, took solemn note of me, and then pro- 
ceeded hurriedly on his business. I, too, 
had business, and was, like himself, in a 
hurry. Then it was that a dusky but bene- 
volent old gentleman on a burro came around 
the corner, his donkey's long ears parting 
the emerald feathers of the mesquite bushes. 
He was properly interested in my dilemma ; 
and after, he had described my errant course 
to the best of his ability, he continued to 
wave his arms and legs to all points of the 
compass, and shout 'in scollops.' In truth, 
he presented so agitated an appearance that 
I pulled up once more, and, pointing with 
my whip ahead, repeated with emphasis : 






OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 135 

1 Este camino, senor ?' 

4 Si, si, senora ' 

The rest became hopelessly involved in a 
repetition of circular demonstrations, in- 
terrupted somewhat rudely and excitedly by 
my horse, who has a habit of protesting 
against lengthy native discourses. But 1 
discovered later that what that ancient sage 
meant to convey was the fact that two roads 
pointing in diametrically opposite directions 
arrived in due course at one and the same 
goal. 

Finally, after scaling one of the lofty, un- 
protected bridges which clamber awkwardly, 
and in the case of a spirited team somewhat 
perilously, over the large acequias, I found 
myself surveying a wide level expanse, 
sprinkled here and there with brown dabs. 
Which of these dabs was the home of my 
trading friend ? I looked around, and on the 
hither side of the acequia my eyes lighted on 
a family party seated at breakfast beneath the 
shed of the country — four bigas, or posts, 
upholding a roof of brush. The fire for per- 
forming the simple culinary duties of the 
Mexican smoked on the hard-trodden ground 



136 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

beside the table. From these people, after 
more waving of arms and much unnecessary 
and wordy circumlocution, I obtained direc- 
tions which landed me at my destination. 

Tables and chairs are not a necessity with 
the Mexican, and the introduction of furniture 
may not unjustly be considered in the light, 
to some extent, of an American innovation. 
Francisco, for instance, takes unto him a 
wife, and is provided with a house ; but the 
subject of furniture is still far removed from 
his thoughts. Then his employer undertakes 
to display continually before his eyes, and in 
large type, the advantages as well as charms 
of house-furnishing. The summit of many 
a Mexican's domestic ambition is attained 
when he rolls himself nightly in his blanket 
and groups himself en famille upon the hard 
clay floor about his brick oven or open fire, 
and rises to cook his frugal meal of frijoles 
and chili, or some other native preparation, 
simple enough but not unappetizing. For, 
except in that matter of wine, the Mexican, 
like the Spanish, peasant is frugal to an 
admirable degree, and enjoys for the most 
part good health therewith. But if he can 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 137 

quarter himself on an American, then indeed 
do his powers of absorption develop them- 
selves alarmingly — of absorption, not of 
assimilation — for there falls upon him the 
curse of the Americano, the dyspepsia, and 
he suffers ' mucho malo ' in his ' estomago.' 

Francisco and his spouse add chair to table, 
therefore, and, far more surprising, cook-stove 
to bed, and spread a fine new carpet on the 
clay floor. In two years they own a furnished 
house, and Francisco can speak English. Sad 
to relate, Francisco has since that time under- 
gone something of a relapse ; but when a man 
removes into the bosom of an extensive family 
connection, and together with it becomes the 
owner of fruitful vineyards, what would you 
have ? The wine barrel is always on tap, 
and if there are none to buy, a man must 
e'en drink thereof himself. 

Our native population is chiefly Catholic, 
and held in sore bondage by its priests and 
by the might of its own superstitions. The 
work of mission -schools — Methodist and 
Presbyterian mostly, the Episcopal Church 
being notoriously backward in home-missions 
— is decidedly good. If it does nothing 



138 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

more, it civilizes the native, catching him 
young, and teaching future voters the 
language of the country whose laws— oh, 
supreme height of human folly ! — they are 
to assist in making. True, these mission- 
schools are but as a drop in the ocean, but 
still they accomplish the above, and some- 
thing more too, judging by the few specimens 
I have seen of mission-instructed Mexicans. 
That they have acquired the (to them) un- 
natural art of truth-speaking, I cannot go so 
far as to affirm, but in all other details they 
are an improvement on the original. 

One day Adelado came to me. 

' Senora, will you advance me five dollars ?' 

' But, Adelado, you are already ahead of 
your wages.' 

' Si, senora, but the padre ; it is to pay 
the priest.' 

' The padre, Adelado ? But you have 
already paid him much !' 

1 Si, senora, but Tomas — he has asked me 
to be godfather to his child, and to be a god- 
father one pays the priest ten dollars.' 

Now, the priests are sleek and fat, and as 
even Mother Church soils her garments with 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 139 

the mire of petty politics, it is presumed that 
a use is always found for the dollars coined 
out of the superstition or religious instinct — 
call it which you will — of the poor Mexican 
or Indian. But occasionally the Mexican 
rebels, the wild blood in him asserting itself. 
He cherishes certain superstitions of his own, 
with which it is well for not even a holy padre 
to interfere. For instance, there are saints' 
days on which it is his pleasure, and has been 
his pleasure for centuries, to dance, and to 
dance much. The priest interferes ; his flock 
maintains a passive obstinacy. One night 
the padre receives a pressing call to a dying 
bed ; but this is no dying bed to which he is 
hurried through the deep sand of the desert, 
or through groves of sighing cottonwood, 
under a moonless sky. When he is escorted 
home again through the darkness by that 
band of silent men, it is a very sore padre 
who climbs alone upon the porch of his com- 
fortable home, and seeks consolation in a 
goblet of the wine of the country, of which 
he always maintains in his closet a sufficiency, 
and of the best, too ; for the padre, as he is 
known with us, is a good judge of wine. 



140 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

And just now he stands in need of a reviving 
draught, for he has had a beating, and a 
thorough one at that. The cloven hoof may 
not often be en Evidence in our tawny neigh- 
bours, but it is there, all the same. And in 
this case the culprits are as easily to be found 
as needles in a haystack. The Mexican 
population is large, and on the point touched 
by its padre it is of one mind. 

'Juan,' I said one day, 'do you have to 
pay your priests much ?' 

Juan, who had been laughing at the antics 
of a puppy, turned on me a lowering coun- 
tenance. 

'Senora,' he said, with a passion that had 
in it more than a trace of vindictiveness, ' I 
am a poor man. I work hard, and my 
children are many. The priests live well ; 
they are fat, and have all that they wish. I 
give to the priests — yes ; I put a dime in the 
church-box for them when I go to Mass with 
my family. But I do not go too often. The 
priests rob the poor.' 

But if Mother Church gets a good deal 
out of the Mexican, he gets out of her in 
return something — his money's worth in 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 

holidays, for him who chooses to enjoy them. 
But Juan despises these incessant holidays, 
which to the American ranchero cause much 
and sore vexation of spirit. Some indispen- 
sable work is due to be done on the morrow. 

* But, senora,' says Hernandez firmly, 
though courteously, ' to-morrow we do not 
work. It is a holiday in our Church.' 

Juan declares that these holidays are for 
the lazy ones, and we know that there are 
many lazy ones. 

On these festive days waggons roll by 
from dawn till dusk — for the holiday begins 
with Mass at the church — laden with loud- 
voiced natives ; the women, more rarely the 
men, in gala attire, the inevitable black shawl 
— sorry aftermath of the mantilla — drawn 
over their heads. They visit their friends, 
talk endlessly, drink wine, at night, perhaps, 
hold a baile. 

On the Eve of the Feast of St. Genevieve 
the natives treat the town to an illumination. 
All day the householders are engaged in 
placing rows of paper bags filled with sand 
along the edges of the flat-roofed houses. 
In the sand they plant candles. When the 



ytuBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

hour for lighting" up arrives, the effect is 
bizarre and charming. The band thumps on 
the arid plaza, rockets whiz heavenward in 
honour of the patron saint ; the scene, with 
all its adjuncts, is complete. When the 
morrow arrives, with perhaps a wind at its 
heels, reaction sets in. The paper bags tip 
over, and spill their contents down the necks 
of unwary passengers in the street below ; 
and this is a gradual process, continuing for 
days. Naturally, the bags do not all tip over 
at once. As for removing them, we are gently 
reminded, and not for the first time, that we 
live in the land oi poco tiempo. 

Christmas Night brings us another illu- 
mination, and one that appeals more vividly 
to the imagination ; for this is the night 
on which, many, many years ago, the Holy 
Mother visited her children in the Valley of 
the Rio Grande. She has never repeated 
her visit ; but what of that ? There is always 
a hope that she may do so, and her sacred 
feet must not be allowed to tread an un- 
lighted way. So for days before Christmas 
the devoutly inclined Mexican gathers brush 
and sticks, and whatever combustible he can 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 143 

find — on the mountains, if possible ; if not, 
hauls them toilsomely up their sides— and, 
when darkness falls, lights his fires upon the 
crags and peaks for miles around. Therefore 
it is that, should the Holy Virgin come our 
way, there is no fear lest her feet should 
stumble in the night. When bedtime arrives, 
we step out on the porch, and look towards 
the high mountains ; the fires still burn. 

The superstitions of the Mexican have, in 
certain cases, a familiar ring to one who has 
spent many years in the heart of the South. 
For instance, there is the moon, whose pro- 
ceedings govern, in the Southern States, 
sowing and planting, pruning and reaping, 
and all the daily actions of the farming man. 
Lately I said to Valentina that it was sad 
that, in my flock of thoroughbred chickens, 
all my pullets should have turned out to be 
cockerels. 

4 Ah,' replied. Valentina, ' when you set the 
eggs, you did not watch the moon !' Valentina 
has lived with me, or rather worked for me, 
on and off, a matter of two years, but still 
stoutly refuses to speak a word of English, 
and, indeed, pretends she understands none — 



J 



144 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

which is an imposition. ' La luna chiquita — 
oh, chiquitilla ! — poco gallinas, mucho gallos ! 
La luna gra-a-a-nde ' (spreading arms and 
hands, and opening mouth cavernously), 
' mucho gallinas, poco gallos !' 

The native woman has an inveterate 
objection to learning English. She often 
understands it, as can be proved somewhat 
disagreeably on occasion ; but she will deny 
such an accusation with her latest breath. 
A shriek of ' No sabe ! no sabe !' and a frantic 
waving of hands, greets the mild but firm 
insistence that she understands the language 
of her country. Except for this peculiarity — 
and, of course, even to this there are excep- 
tions — she is in some ways the superior of 
her better-half. Partaking to some degree 
of the nature of the Indian squaw, once 
caught and induced to work for an employer, 
she plods on with far more of automatic 
steadiness than does her masculine counter- 
part. In truth, on her, in the home, falls the 
burden and heat of the day. Given a little 
more intelligence to counterbalance the stupid 
greed which is one of the characteristics of 
the Mexican, male and female, she has in 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 145 

her the material for an excellent domestic. 
But she either strikes for higher wages — 
being already paid beyond her worth — or 
burns with uncontrolled desire to hasten 
home and spend her gains. She cannot 
cook ; but hitherto, in view of the frugality 
and limitations of the native menu, the 
culinary art has possessed no solid attrac- 
tions for her, and she is furthermore wholly 
destitute of the negro's facility in, and desire 
for, learning. But whether it is the touch of 
the artist in her nature, or merely the plodding 
quality aforementioned, she is capable of 
being trained — at least, in my experience of 
her — to pleasant household ways of orderli- 
ness, and love of those details which make a 
home a home. This is not only remarkable, 
when one considers the home in which she 
is so often content to exist, but it is also 
remarkable that, in this respect, she should 
be far ahead of the American woman who 
4 hires out ' in these parts. Set a Mexican 
woman to clean your parlour, and even if 
she should not be able, at the first attempt, 
to restore everything where it belongs, she 
leaves it in such shape that you feel it has 

10 



146 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

been a pleasure to her to handle pretty things. 
In fact, she has probably wasted time in 
twiddling a silk scarf to suit her, or arranging 
bric-a-brac to carry out some idea of her own, 
and also not improbably has gathered flowers 
and set them in a vase with some show of 
taste. The American woman, on the con- 
trary, and as she is known here, would have 
made of this cleaning nothing but a task, her 
mind very likely only occupied in comparing 
your humble matting and rugs with the velvet- 
pile of her own past glories ; or handling with 
scorn, and perhaps shattering, a piece of old 
china on which, you set some store. Nothing 
will be put where it belongs, and will not be, 
should she clean the room a dozen times ; 
and as for arranging flowers 

Yet even she — the great, impossible She — 
has her exceptions. 

That the native woman must be caught 
and induced to work remains nevertheless 
true. Strange to say, mere offers of money 
will not do it. It is possible that she 
wants to see before she believes, and while 
promising to come again and again, it may 
be weeks, if . ever, ere she materializes. 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 147 

Distrustfulness seems to be born in the 
native, and a significant fact, and one con- 
stantly overlooked in writing and speaking 
of him, is the profound suspicion he en- 
tertains towards those of his own race. 
Evidently, and not wholly without reason, 
he views his compatriots in the light of a 
band of thieves ! Also it requires an ex- 
ceptional Mexican, man or woman, to see 
that petty thieving is against his own in- 
terests, while the average negro almost 
never steals when satisfied with his employer. 
Therein consists one of the many respects in 
which the negro, intelligently speaking, is 
superior to the Mexican. 

The native woman is courteous herself, 
and expects the same in return. There are 
few Englishwomen, however — or ladies is 
perhaps a better word — who demean them- 
selves by rudeness to those in their employ, 
so there is no trouble about that ; unless 
unfortunately it should be necessary to 
employ an American woman also, in which 
event there will certainly be trouble : the 
result, precipitate flight on the part of the 
native. 

10 — 2 



148 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

With all her drawbacks as a domestic, the 
house-mistress with us usually prefers the 
native to the (American) imported article. 
For instance, we have our Jesuscitas — not of 
common occurrence, but occurring sometimes, 
nevertheless. Jesuscita is not grasping, and 
she does not mind work, sickly though she 
be. Her wages burn a hole, all the same, 
and she is restless until they are spent. She 
has the great advantage of having been a 
scholar in a Methodist mission-school, and 
she speaks English — a passion for calling milk 
and other inanimate objects * he ' to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. She is altogether, as 
a Mexican, a superior production. That she 
partakes of the lack of intelligence charac- 
teristic of her race is not to be reckoned 
against her, inasmuch as she had no hand in 
her mental make-up. She is a gentle, and 
of course untruthful, little creature, and we 
grow fond of her as she lingers from week to 
week within our borders. If after making 
an object-lesson of my housekeeping desires 
four or five times in one morning, only to 
find them carried out in a totally contrary 
direction, or else to have them forgotten 



OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN 149 

altogether, is somewhat exasperating, a back- 
ward thought bestowed on my graceless 
American ' help '. speedily reconciles me to 
Jesuscita's trifling deficiencies. At all events, 
the pleasant ' Si, senora!' even when attended 
with inconspicuous results, is vastly more 
soothing than the barbaric ' All right !' given 
grudgingly, or even not at all. 

Jesuscita, in her scarlet bodice and pink 
skirt, her dusky hair tied with yellow ribbons 
and hanging in a long tress, her black eyes 
mildly shining, as she drives away with her 
brother for her Sunday's outing, is a not un- 
pleasing picture. 

But even as I write my hand trembles. 
Who can tell what an hour may bring forth ? 
And, lo ! I turn the page, and Jesuscita's 
modest sun has set, and, weeping, she has 
returned whence she came — * Mucho malo, 
senora, mucho malo !' Poor little sickly 
Jesuscita! 

Though as a race distinctly unsightly, 
occasionally by good hap one lights on a 
comely Mexican girl. Her cheeks are red, 
her thick skin is white, her raven tresses 
fulfil all expectations, her face is plump, her 



150 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

eyes are large, and black as the oft-quoted 
night. Yes, she is certainly comely, and, as 
a certain popular (female) novelist hath it, 
1 good to look upon.' What is the matter, 
then ? The matter is that there is invariably 
something wrong with the expression of 
those fine eyes of hers. They ought to be 
superb, and they are not — emphatically not. 
Is it something lacking in their expression? 
Or is it a faulty setting ? Quien sabe ? 
Who knows ? 



[ i5i 1 



CHAPTER VII. 

OUR HELP. 

' Having come to New Mexico for my health, 
I intend to procure a competent American 
woman to take care of my house while I 
attend to the ranch. Don't you think that a 
good idea?' 

I had spoken ; but why did the countenance 
of my acquaintance wear so queer a smile ? 
All she said, however, was : 

'Admirable ! I wish you good luck.' 

Some months later I once more encoun- 
tered her. I was a battered, indignant, 
outraged wreck. She called for a recital of 
my woes, and I furnished her with one. 

' Don't worry,' was her remark, as the last 
words of the painful drama fell from my lips ; 
4 we've all " been there " before you. Now, 
perhaps, you understand why we do our own 



152 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

work, or else get along as best we can with 
Mexican girls. You have probably been too 
kind to your help — shown them too much 
consideration. 

1 Well,' I replied apologetically, 'they were 
a long way from home and friends, and 
it is dull for help on a ranch, and they 
were always complaining about their health, 
and ' 

1 Oh, never mind about that !' interrupted 
my acquaintance, smiling. 'What you did 
would in any case have made little or no 
difference ; it would have been all the same 
in the end. As for me, white help belongs 
to my ' tenderfoot ' days. Now I do my own 
work. My household gods have vanished ; 
I have scarcely anything left me by the 
destroyers except peace of mind ; but at 
least I have that.' 

One day I started out with the hope of 
inducing two or three friends to aid me in an 
effort I was making for a certain philanthropic 
society in the East. Help being so hard to 
procure, and so incompetent in our section, 
the idea was that almost any housekeeper 
would be thankful to take a white woman to 



OUR HELP 153 



work for her board — more especially as my 
promised protegees, though needing a change 
of climate, were represented as perfectly able 
to do excellent work, besides being provided 
with flaming credentials. The answers I 
received ran somewhat in this wise : 

' Well, to speak frankly, I hate to disturb 
the peace of my family, and I have tried 
having " ladies" to work for their board. 
It's pretty hard doing all the work one's self, 
but a tranquil life is worth paying something 
for.' Or— 

' You're still a " tenderfoot " as regards 
Societies, I see. You will win your experi- 
ence after awhile — experience that you won't 
forget, either.' 

No, I have not forgotten my experience ; 
neither am I ever likely to do so. But let 
me hasten to turn that bitter page. 

' It's well enough here for the men,' ex- 
claims the sympathetic masculine ; ' but it's 
awful hard on delicate women.' 

Never was there a truer word spoken. 
Let those who sit at home at ease, whose 
' housekeeping cares ' are by comparison 
anywhere on this side of the ocean a mere 



154 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

matter for jest, come to the Far West, or 
even no further than the East, and learn for 
the first time the true meaning of ' house- 
keeping cares.' Let the theorist who, like 
the Pharisee, stands afar off, and moralizes 
on the beneficent effects of ' housework,' 
come and try it just for one little year. Or 
perhaps a bushel of American ' Home ' 
magazines and journals, conscientiously ex- 
plored, would suffice to still for ever any ill- 
advised hankering after ' housework.' The 
amount of actual manual labour the average 
American housewife and mother — for even the 
possession of good means does not ensure a life 
of ease — gets through in one day would stagger 
the Englishwoman of the same social posi- 
tion. No wonder the demoralizing existence 
endured at hotels and boarding-houses is so 
constantly found preferable to the worries of 
home-making. But here let me call a halt. 
This subject is too burning, too endless, a 
one to find place in these pages. Suffice it 
to say that, in that matter of mere manual 
labour, there are few even healthy women, 
unless backed by an ancestry of ' horny- 
handed sons of toil,' who can bear with 



OUR HELP 155 



impunity year after year daily drudgery, 
complicated as it usually is with the care and 
responsibility of their children. 

I tried my ' competent American woman ' 
exhaustively, and, so far as I was personally 
concerned, exhaustingly. The type of this 
variety of Impossible Person does not vary 
much. At all events, it is not difficult to 
present a composite picture of her or it. I 
may add that until she appeared upon my 
Far Western carpet my domestic trials had 
been so few as to arouse the envy — nay, 
the greed — of neighbours. But luck had 
favoured me, and my home was then not in 
the West. The Impossible Person was to 
change all that ; the Impossible Person, or 
the Portly One ; either title applies equally 
well. And as for calling her names — why, 
she owes her victim that compensation, and 
it is but a little one, after all. The self- 
restraint demanded by a year or two of slow 
torture was due only to one's self; for as 
regards her it was distinctly misplaced. Un- 
doubtedly there is a large class of women on 
whom the restraints of the noblesse that 
obliges are entirely wasted ; a good shaking 



156 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

would not only be of greater benefit to their 
system, moral and physical, but in most 
cases would be more acceptable into the 
bargain. 

' I do not believe,' I said once, when con- 
siderably exasperated by the complaints of a 
Portly One, 4 that you would in any house 
meet with as much forbearance and con- 
sideration as you meet with in mine.' 

* No — I know it,' was the reply, interlarded 
with unpleasant sobs, 'and that's just the 
trouble. If you'd tear around some, and 
quarrel and fuss, I wouldn't feel so bad and 
home-sick !' 

I gazed musingly upon the big, fat, strong 
woman, able, an she would, to make a good 
living anywhere — to live anywhere she chose; 
not cast out into the desert to struggle for 
health or semi-health, far from home and 
friends. I let her go. To engage in wordy 
encounters with one's help in order to ensure 
her against home-sickness ? No ; that game 
was not worth any kind of a candle. 

Let us suppose, O reader, that you are a 
quasi-invalid, and that one of these persons, 
for the modest sum of £^& to £j2 per 



*9* 



OUR HELP 157 



annum and railroad expenses paid, has 
agreed by letter to all your demands, robust 
health included, and has undertaken, in her 
own words, ' to keep your house as I keep 
my own, and to be a help and comfort to 
you.' She arrives, and deposits herself in 
the most comfortable, and of necessity the 
roomiest, chair in your parlour. She has 
not occupied this position for half an hour 
before you are in possession of a category 
of her ailments ; not very serious ones, you 
consider, but in the vain hope of curing 
which she has, she assures you, spent 
hundreds of dollars on divers physicians. 
She is so imposing and so large that a slight 
expenditure of moral courage may be re- 
quired in order to remind her of her written 
assurance of 'perfect health.' Thereupon 
she expands her ample bosom in a gust of 
injured dignity, and retorts severely : 

4 You need give yourself no uneasiness ; 
I never give up.' 

At this point at once make up your mind 
that, to use words once addressed to your- 
self, 'You have come to New Mexico for 
everyone's health and benefit but your own,' 



158 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

unless — unless you have a skin of leather 
and deaf ears through which the roof-raising 
sighs of well-nourished martyrs cannot pierce. 
It is assumed that your household is very 
small, but that your Portly One may have 
no excuse for failing to be your ' help and 
comfort,' you provide her with intermittent 
native assistance. With these Mexicans, 
should sh~ have picked up a smattering of 
their tongue, she gossips or plays the bully, 
and they loathe her with a loathing that 
promptly and permanently annihilates all 
hope of immunity from domestic uproar. 

'But I wish you, Valentina, to take your 
orders from the other senora !' you ejaculate, 
upon the tenth interruption in one hour by 
an excited senorita. 

'No, senora — no, I cannot! I go if you 
will not tell me what to do yourself.' 

Upon: expostulating with your Portly One 
for her roughness to her aide, she shouts : 

' I tell you / kep' a gyurl in my day, and 
I never let her do me as your gyurl does 
you, you bet ! She imposes on you awful.' 

Therefore she sees to it that all the 
1 imposing '-—and there is plenty of it — shall 



OUR HELP 159 



be done by herself. She can usually cook 
fairly well after the somewhat greasy fashion 
prevalent in her class ; for she is more often 
than not the relict of a railroad man, and 
anyone who has been let behind the scenes 
of that profession knows that the majority of 
these workers put what they earn into the 
mouths of self and family, or on the family 
back. Also you must expect to have/ diamond 
earrings dangled before your eyes once or 
twice a week, and to be informed at each 
proud display what they cost. . As these 
diamonds are generally quite ordinary, and 
mounted in the worst possible taste, you will 
not suffer acute pangs of envy. Allowed, 
then, that she is a tolerable cook, her want 
of neatness — her complete ignorance of the 
discrepancy existing between her 'I will 
keep your house as I keep my own ' and ' I 
will keep your house as a lady's should be 
kept '—is rather harrowing ; in fact, she con- 
descends to take your money on her own 
conditions. She associates with you as your 
equal — or, better still, your superior — though 
you are fain to acknowledge that in many 
respects she is greatly inferior to the English 



i6o OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



upper servant, for the reason that the latter 
has not only had some sort of training in 
domestic duties, but has also had some form 
of association with people of refinement, or 
at least good manners ; whereas the Im- 
possible Person has had neither the one nor 
the other. This female, out of whose mouth 
pour the frogs and toads of ' English as she 
is spoke,' considers herself your superior 

because But let her speak for herself 

in her own choice vocabulary : 

' That your sealskin ? My ! but you 
oughter seen my aunt Marie's !' (pronounced 
Mztrray, French names mispronounced being 
chic in her social circle) — 'reached clear 
down to her shoe-tops ! Them's your books? 
Th'ain't nothin' there for me to read — got 
through with that kind in my schooldays.' 
Here, if you are wise, and hope for quiet 
evening hours, you will hastily promise her 
all the ' dime novels ' — Anglice, ' railway 
trash ' — that the neighbourhood can be in- 
duced to yield. * This your parlour ? 
H'm-m-m ! Wish you could ha' seen my 
velvet pile and plush suite ! Well, matting 
and rugs is good enough for a ranch, I 



OUR HELP 161 



guess. Heigh ! now I've gone and done 
it !' as a choice piece of Dresden slips 
through her pudgy fingers with a crash. 
As yet but imperfectly acquainted with the 
Impossible Person, you rashly assume that 
her sentiments are even as your own would 
be at so direful an accident, and you assure 
her that the cup was already cracked. '/ 
should say ! Didn't look anything so 
almighty fine, anyhow — cost a dollar or two 
when it was new, like as not. Bill gave one 
hundred dollars for the bric-a-brac on my 
parlour mantel ; and I tell you them gilt 
vases were about worth lookin' at ! And 
the crayon portraits of him and me each 
side o' that mantel had the handsomest 
frames you ever laid your eyes on. We 
lived tip-top, we did — kep' the richest table. 
Your account at the grocery ain't a patch on 
mine !' 

' Perhaps that is the reason you suffer 
from dyspepsia now,' you suggest, with a 
meekness born of the first encounter with 
an avalanche. 

1 Like as not ' — complacently ; ' we never 
stinted ourselves for nothin'. We had a 

ii 



162 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

plenty, and soon's Bill got a thousand 
dollars together we'd up and take a trip.' 

'Where did you go, and what did you 
see?' 

4 Oh, I don't just know where we went — 
'most everywhere, I guess, where the crowd 
goes. We took in everything, you can bet 
on that, and we stopped at the most toney 
hotels, and had everything we'd a mind to, 
and lived as well as the first in the land. 
We wasn't goin' to be cut out by nobody so 
long's the money lasted. When we'd spent 
it all we went back home. Been to any 
picture-galleries ? I dunno as I has, but 
when I was a young lady I painted sech 
pictures as you ain't never seen since you 
was born,' etc. Or: 'You not acquainted 
with Mrs. Z. or Mrs. Y. !' (obscure Western 
luminaries, in ignorance of whose very exist- 
ence you have hitherto contrived to 'make 
out'). 'Well, they're real ladies — real 
wealthy, you bet !' 

Then follows the wearisome inventory of 
their plenishings and furnishings and per- 
sonal effects. When it is over you feel 
moved to throw decency and self-control to 



OUR HELP 163 



the four winds — to take your Impossible 
Person by the shoulders, and, exerting your 
small remaining strength, thrust — or perhaps 
kick (there is no telling how near to lunacy 
such association may bring you) — her out of 
the room, bang and lock the door in her 
face. But you don't do it. You go out to 
mount your horse, on business bent. 

' Humph! you a-goin' to ride that horse? 
I've ridden some fine horses in my time ! 
Wish you could ha' seen the kind o' rider 
/ was — could break any colt as ever you laid 
your eyes on ! Can ride anything now — 
don't know's I care how wild.' 

You look at the ' too, too solid flesh ' 
before you, with which tight corsets have 
played strange pranks, and a sudden frantic 
desire possesses you to see it upheaved into 
the air and mounted on the impatient little 
steed awaiting you. 

'Well, get on this mare and take a ride 
up the ranch ; she's tolerably gentle.' 

1 N-n-no ; I guess not. I'm busy to-day 
— don't feel like ridin', any way.' 

She never does feel like riding any more, 
and there is at least one subject of conversa- 

11 — 2 



P-9B 



164 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



tion (?) disposed of for ever — so far as you 
are concerned, at all events. 

So it goes on. You support and sustain 
— in the widest sense of which these words 
admit — a succession of Portly Ones, every 
line of whose faces and forms bears loud 
witness to coarse pleasures (within decent 
limits, of course, one or two examples to 
the contrary notwithstanding) — beer and 
cards, physical as opposed to intellectual 
labour, dull intelligences, aims of the most 
material — and you know beyond peradven- 
ture of a doubt precisely how their pro- 
genitors looked and acted before them. And 
you feel a kind of pity for their impotent 
and ungraceful struggles to beat down class 
barriers, which exist in this country as they 
do everywhere else, and which will continue 
to exist so long as education, high aims, 
common-sense, refinement — nay, even hered- 
ity — count for anything. Oil and water 
cannot mix until the constituent elements 
of both undergo a change, and in spite of 
the waving of banners and shouting of shib- 
boleths, like will continue to seek like, and 
class distinctions, on one plea or another, 



OUR HELP 165 



hold their own. Even here, in the ; wild 
and woolly West,' I endure with a far greater 
show of equanimity the pretensions of the 
type I am engaged in describing than do 
some of my neighbours, citizens of a free 
and equal country though they be ; and I 
cannot, by any stretch of imagination, picture 
my Eastern friends associating on anything 
approaching to equal terms with a succession 
of Impossible Persons. Theory may shout 
in one's ear, but Fact slaps one in the 
face. 

There is an infinitely larger and more 
varied middle class than in England, within 
whose radius lines of demarcation may be said 
to be loosely drawn ; but as surely there is also 
an aristocracy, definite and exclusive, and 
which by no means rests its claims on wealth 
only, or even on wealth at all. The mem- 
bers of this extensive society recognize one 
another as promptly as one Freemason 
knows another ; and of all societies in the 
civilized world there is none more attractive 
— none perhaps so entirely charming. 

Yet even in the great middle class, in its 
endless branches, one trips up against barriers 



1 66 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

as often as not. Yea, the Impossible Person 
herself owns to distinctions. 

'■I was the adopted child of a minister,' 
she says. ' And when I up and married Bill, 
my folks said as I were stoopin' to take up 
with a locomotive engineer ; and they kind o' 
turned against me. Then me and Bill we 
didn't have no children, so we took a girl and 
'dopted her! 

4 What's become of her ?' 

' Oh, she's married too. But Bill he 
weren't pleased with her marryin' no better 
than a brakeman, so we ain't seen nothin' of 
her much. But now Bill's gone, and Bob 
he's a conductor, and a-doin' well, so I guess 
I'll go on and see my daughter when I gets 
away from this place.' 

You continue to sustain her — her and her 
successors. You, the invalid, do, or have 
done for her, the work she is paid to perform. 
She sets down on you — metaphorically ; she 
sets and lays, by-the-by ; she is a burden 
heavy to be borne. Dominated by that 
tremendous ego, that has not a thought or 
hope or wish unconnected with itself, and 
your own spirit fainting beneath bodily 



OUR HELP 167 



malaise, perhaps, or cares and anxieties, you 
may be driven to suggest that conversation 
(Heaven save the mark !) might flow in a 
more cheerful channel than that of her 
ailments : she bursts into tears, and howls 
stormily that * No one loves ' her. You 
wonder whether anyone does, and ' if so, 
how many ?' You soothe her fancied ills 
and wrongs ; you, in fact, are in charge of 
a great overgrown baby. You take her 
driving, and the glories of sky and mountain 
are for you obscured by her enormous pre- 
ponderance of matter. Dissolving brain and 
weary ears are tormented by ceaseless itera- 
tion of what ' Charlie he sez to me,' or ' me to 
Charlie,' or 'what me and Bill ate for our 
supper'; or with narrations of social gatherings 
and triumphs in which you could never have 
shared. Truly, you never could. It is in 
hours such as these that you realize you are 
in the desert indeed ; and though she is 
funny, very funny, she palls. And then 
there come dark days of your own, when to 
live perpetually in the atmosphere of a vulgar 
egotist, whose coarseness, moreover, keeps 
you in a chronic state of wince, is an existence 



168 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

no longer to be borne. Restoration to health 
is seriously impaired by your Portly One ; yet 
what are you to do ? The woman who 
considers ' I forgot ' ample restitution for 
omitting the pudding at dinner or the orders 
to butcher or grocer, can scarcely be con- 
sidered in the light of a housekeeper ; and 
your duties, already too heavy, have to be 
further weighted by some of hers. As for 
mending — the Portly One, who constantly 
bewails the poverty entailed by profuse ex- 
penditure of the late lamented's high wages, 
looks on while you darn and patch, and ex- 
claims : ' Well, that's a thing I never could do !' 
What is her due is of the first importance ; 
what is your due is not to be considered. 
You pay the taxes and bear the expenses of 
the house ; but the house and all that is in it, 
yourself included, is apparently not yours, but 
hers. The mildest suggestion in regard to 
the household machinery — concerning which, 
nevertheless, you have to be mind and 
memory, not daring to become oblivious of 
it for one hour — is met with : 'I'd have you 
to know I'm no hired gyurl ! I've kep' a 
gyurl myself.' 






OUR HELP 169 



She is 'mad,' and she intends you to know 
it. Her piety, should she profess any, will 
not prevent the use of 'language.' Then 
you wish that you had an umbrella, or that 
you had not spoken. The scene will probably 
end in her informing you that you can look 
for someone else. ' You are at liberty to 
please yourself.' This with much con- 
descension. But as in no case will you be 
pleased, the remark presents itself in the 
light of a superfluity. Still, for a time you 
persist in hopefulness ; though the sigh of 
relief you heave as your help and comfort's 
Falstaffian form is trundled off the ranch has 
to be repeated so often that at last even hope 
expires, and your thoughts rove wildly to a 
Chinaman, until you remember that a woman 
you must have. Yet the undisputed fact 
remains that the object of your help and 
comfort in coming to you is so to contrive 
that you shall be hers ; and if you fail to 
come up to her requirements, and provided 
she has skinned you sufficiently for her 
purposes, she decamps. Sense of duty, 
respect for her given word, gratitude for 
kindness received, she scorns. 



170 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

A couple more illustrations, and I have 
done with ' our help.' 

Having, not without the expenditure of 
thought and trouble, obtained for the Portly 
One then on hand what she claimed to have 
set her heart on, i.e., some outside sewing 
(for occasional specimens of the type can 
make dresses), I was somewhat annoyed to 
see that same ' sewing ' lying around in the 
dust day after day, while the Portly One 
reclined at ease and read the sensational 
newspapers beloved of her class. I therefore 
urged upon her my friend's need for the dress 
then in process of making, and that, as a 
Mexican woman was doing most of the 
Portly One's housework, the latter might 
turn her attention to sewing. A burst of 
wrath, unrestrained, descended upon my 
head. 

' If you was as tired and exhausted as I is, 
you wouldn't want to do no sewing !' 

It may here be remarked that I, pre- 
sumably the invalid, was at that time, in 
addition to all my other duties, sitting up 
night after night with a member of the house- 
hold who was very ill, while this particular 



OUR HELP 171 



Portly One was enjoying nights unbroken, 
except by her own snores. 

Once more : One day, having been pre- 
vented from cleaning the silver myself, I 
took up two spoons, the bowls of which were 
— in short, indescribable. 

' Oh,' I exclaimed involuntarily, ' what 
dirty spoons ! Indeed, they will have to be 
washed before being put on the dinner-table !' 

; Let's see !' They were snatched from 
my hand and critically examined. Then, in 
a tone whose scorn no efforts of mine can 
convey : * That ain't dirt !' 

' What is it, then ?' 

' Only p respiration off of my hands !' 

There was a time when I exclaimed : 
' There are plenty of women in the world 
who like housework, and don't like anything 
else ; let them do it, if only as a matter of 
principle !' I waxed hot and indignant on 
the subject — not because I personally have 
any special aversion to housework, but because 
it does not like me. Gradually, as month 
after month rolled by, though principle re- 
mained unaltered, words were quenched. 

1 First catch your hare ; then cook him.' 



172 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Moral : If your family is large enough to 
keep the industrious and methodical China- 
man employed, get one. If his wages are 
beyond the capacities of your purse, or your 
family is too small, provide yourself with a 
Mexican woman, and do the fine cooking 
with your own hands. Best of all, if there 
are two or three feminine members of your 
household each able to take her share, divide 
the work between you, and hire a native 
occasionally to sweep and scrub. If, how- 
ever, you are all delicate, and there is a ranch 
to be looked after, you may find even this 
arrangement somewhat wearing. But it is 
the best you can do. 

Above all things, avoid American female 
help, as she is grown in the Far West. With 
apologies to the inevitable exceptions to the 
rule, this tragic tale may close. 



■ ■ ■■-■ '■■ " ■ - ' ' ■ ' 



[ 173 ] 



CHAPTER VIII. 

WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO. 

On the Help Question — that bugbear of 
American householders, male and female — 
follows inevitably that matter of wages, the 
terror of the householding stranger. It may 
appear like a contradiction in terms to add 
that one of the favourite war-cries of the 
late political campaign was the down-trodden 
working man and low wages. Taking this 
fact into consideration, it will not be amiss 
to present to the reader a few experiences 
reaped in actual daily life — too limited, indeed, 
to lay claim to any importance so far as 
refuting theories, statistics, or a more exten- 
sive acquaintance with the subject are con- 
cerned, and yet occupying a certain position 
of their own. 

On establishing himself in the Territory of 



174 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

New Mexico, for instance, the settler will 
find the following rate of wages, or one 
approximate thereto, prevailing : If a com- 
petent white man can be found — a doubtful 
prospect, despite the hordes of unemployed 
on the tramp, said to be thirsting for work — 
the wages asked will not be less than £5 or 
£6 per month. A competent Mexican — a 
veritable white crow — demands scarcely, if 
any, less. To a Mexican hired by the day, 
3s. to 4s. will have to be paid. Of the native 
capacity for work, enough has already been 
said. A sefiora or senorita considers herself 
entitled to 4s. a day, and from £2 to about 
£3 1 os. a month ; furthermore, it must be 
noted that the native lady who can cook, or 
even desires to acquire the art of cookery, is 
another white crow. A white carpenter, the 
efficiency of whose work is not included in 
the bargain, receives 16s. a day. 

Now, the above can hardly be considered 
starvation wages ; indeed, wholly out of pro- 
portion as they are to the cost of living, it is 
not unfair to inquire whether the high rate 
of wages in the Far West, where the large 
majority of the employers of individual labour 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 175 

possess small or moderate means, is not a 
factor in the ever-increasing wail concerning 
want of work. Theorists, and others of that 
ilk, may throw scorn on the insinuation ; but 
numbers of private families, as well in Cali- 
fornia as in New Mexico, would, if questioned, 
give this as their principal reason for dis- 
pensing with hired help. Those able to 
pay the wages demanded prefer Chinese or 
Japanese labour both in house and grove, 
for reasons best set forth in the words of an 
employer of both : ' When I put a Chinaman 
or a Japanese in my house, for the high 
wages he demands he gives full value, more 
or less. He goes about his work steadily, 
not fancying much interference, I allow, but, 
on the other hand, seldom requiring much. 
When I put him into my orange-grove, he 
comes early and stays late, obeying the direc- 
tions given him about the picking, and never 
shirking or cheating. Of the average white 
labourer, the exact contrary would have to 
be said. Yet the latter boycott and in every 
way outrage and abuse the Chinaman or 
Japanese, while declining to provide labour 
as satisfactory. Our reason for preferring 



176 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

this " foreign labour " is not based on any 
question of wages, as is pretended, but 
on the question of competence or incom- 
petence.' 

Then, it must also be remembered that the 
disastrous series of ' booms ' which devastated 
the Far West, as almost everywhere else, 
unnaturally inflated wages, and undoubtedly 
play their part in the present discontent. 
The bane of the hoodlum, or street rough, 
rests on more than one large city of the Far 
West, and the tramp is the terror of women 
on lone farms or dwelling unprotected beside 
the railroad ; though of the hoboe it must be 
added that it is not here that he is at his 
worst, but rather in the States of the great 
Middle West. The Mayor of one of its 
cities recently suggested, moved by righteous 
wrath, that the whipping-post be resurrected 
as the only known cure for the disease of 
trampism, and an authority on the hoboe 
has exposed him, shorn of all his moving 
attributes, in the pages of the Century 
Magazine. In vain ! For him the tears of 
the sentimentalist still flow. 

' I only want a piece of dry bread, ma'am/ 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 177 

1 Poor fellow ! Walk right in, and let me 
give you a hot breakfast.' 

' No, thankee. Me and my mates jes' crave 
a mite o' dry bread to help fix the dressin' 
for our turkey ; that's all we're after gettinV 

When the Coxeyite army marched through 
the land like a horde of locusts, it was known, 
past all dispute, that many of these unem- 
ployed had thrown up paying positions in 
California, and had since refused excellent 
offers of work en route, for the sake of the 
excitement of tramping and posing as martyrs. 
And for awhile their posing was admirably 
successful ; but the patience of the most 
good-natured, kindly people on the face of 
the civilized globe at length gave out. At 
the time of the uprising of unemployed in 
Chicago, farmers throughout the North- West 
were crying out for harvesters ; but farm- 
work at two dollars a day was not good 
enough for ' starving men.' 

Far be it from me to sneer at the distresses 
of the deserving unemployed, of which the 
hard times so long prevalent on this side have 
produced their thousands. Yet even into 
their case an element enters rarely observed 

12 



178 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

upon, but existent, nevertheless. An eminent 
philanthropist alludes to it as the 4 thriftless- 
ness of the American working man.' Saving, 
which involves abstinence, does not, in the 
majority of instances, enter into the working 
man's scheme of life. Especially is this 
true regarding the denizens of large cities. 
The best of everything is in demand for 
the family table, in spite of which, or as a 
resulting consequence thereof, various forms 
of ' dyspepsy ' stick closer than a brother ; 
and the wife and daughters indulge with- 
out stint that passion for personal adorn- 
ment which permeates all classes more in- 
tensely than in England. New York provides 
for her citizens, and especially for her crowded 
poor, an almost limitless variety of cheap 
daily excursions throughout the summer by 
land and sea and river. No matter what 
day in the week one may select for a trip, 
there is the same holiday-making crowd — 
greater, of course, on Saturdays and Sundays, 
but always great ; and I do not believe that 
anyone who has not, like myself, spent a 
summer in New York, under medical orders 
to avail myself constantly of these really 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 179 

enjoyable excursions, can form an idea either 
of their variety or of the numbers who take 
advantage of them. It has always, since 
that summer, been difficult for me to expend 
an extravagant amount of emotion over the 
sufferings of the artisan class ' left to stew in 
the city.' That it should be possible to place 
such measures of relief within the reach of 
the working man and his family is a boon 
indeed ; nevertheless, seeing him and his 
so prominently and constantly ' on pleasure 
bent/ whilst one's ears are assailed with tales 
of the hard times, low or no wages, one is 
tempted to meditate concerning men and 
things. Does the working man ever antici- 
pate that possible ' rainy day ' which men of 
our own class — the professional class — are 
apt to prepare for ? Why should the working 
man — who, in truth, only shares the hard 
times with others of his fellow-citizens — deem 
himself superior to the duty of thrift, and 
angrily demand the same luxuries in bad 
times as in good ? For this is, in truth, what 
his attitude amounts to. I should, indeed, 
have to disbelieve the evidence of my own 
senses were I to declare that it is the majority, 

12 — 2 



180 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

and not the minority, that lay by for hard 
times, ever-recurring strikes, and so forth. 
When the working man is saving and thrifty, 
his aims, generally speaking, are material ; 
money, together with the gaudy spending 
thereof, his engrossing object. It is not from 
his class that the great men of American his- 
tory have sprung — speaking again generally. 
During a period of many months I was 
served faithfully and competently by an 
intelligent Irish- American woman of the re- 
spectable tenement-house class. She talked 
with me freely concerning the manner of life 
prevalent among the families of working men. 
Some of her disclosures provided not a little 
food for thought. That many were receiving 
relief who were not merely unworthy, but 
were fully able to take care of themselves, 
goes without saying, and also that it was not 
the Charity Organization which was making 
these blunders, but the Churches. My in- 
formant was temporarily supporting her sister 
and child on the wages she received from me, 
yet incidental remarks revealed that their 
table was liberally supplied with 'the best,' 
with beer, of course, in plenty. She one day 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 181 

proudly displayed a doll for which she had 
just paid about six shillings, in order, forsooth, 
that her little girl should not be ashamed to 
carry it out to the park on Sundays ! I have 
heard women of high social position, whose 
means, nevertheless, called for judicious 
management, declare that at their butcher's 
it is common for them to be contemptuously 
elbowed to one side by slatternly tenement- 
house women, ordering for their home con- 
sumption the best cuts of beef at what might 
be termed prohibitive prices, or spring 
chickens at 40 cents (about is. 8d.) per 
pound. Another woman, a working woman 
herself, told me that during a certain famous 
car strike in New York I should have been 
amazed to see what costly purchases were 
made in the city markets by the wives of the 
strikers. 

While living in the flat alluded to above, 
the position of engineer to the house fell 
vacant. At least a hundred applicants 
pressed forward. It was an easy task to 
weed out the preponderating element of in- 
competency ; a harder task for the kind- 
hearted manager to close his ears and blind 



1 82 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

his judgment to tales of heart-rending woe. 
The man finally selected, on account of 
superior efficiency, professed to be in urgent 
need of work. When, a little later, I was 
preparing to leave the city, and offered for 
sale a few pieces of furniture of a light order 
— bamboo and wicker chairs, etc. — the 
engineer came to view them. ' Oh no,' he 
exclaimed, in a burst of fine scorn, ' these 
things ain't near fine enough for my wife's 
parlour. She wouldn't as much as look at 
'em. We got to have somethin' in plush — 
somethin' rich.' 

It is occasionally asserted that the majority 
of those who consider thrift or self-denial 
beneath their notice are foreign born. This 
may or may not be so ; I can only say that 
my own personal experiences are directly 
opposed to that view. The bugbear of the 
foreign immigrant is, in any case, losing 
much of its terrors for the home-grown 
citizen. I am not alluding here to the lowest 
of his kind, mostly to be found amongst the 
Hungarians, Poles, Italians, Russian Jews, 
etc., whose admission to this country calls for 
the strictest of regulations, but to the great 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 183 

mass of well or partially-educated and, more 
or less, law-abiding importations, consisting 
in no small degree of Germans and Scandi- 
navians. The Irish importation, its desira- 
bility or the reverse, I will omit all discussion 
of, merely remarking that, whatever its merits, 
it is mostly en dvidence to the private citizen 
in its least attractive guise, and that the ranks 
of saloon-keepers, low politicians, and the 
great Tammany itself, are kept well supplied 
by the representatives of the Emerald Isle. 

As for that worship of Mammon of which 
one hears so much, it was not until my foot- 
steps turned Westward that they stumbled 
seriously by reason of it. The West, railing 
against the East as the idolater of wealth, 
kneels in very truth far nearer to the god's 
footstool, worshipping more blindly and 
ignorantly. The vast bourgeoisie of the 
Middle West (I know that many Americans 
will jeer at the expression, but again there 
are many who will consider it fairly apposite) 
is a far-reaching power. Within its radius 
are to be found strongly-defined, if to the 
stranger sometimes incomprehensible, class 
distinctions. Nevertheless, its aims and the 



184 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

objects of its worship have much in common 
one with another. Its highest tide never 
does more than break against the barriers 
of the highest and most cultured society, and 
its lowest strictly defines its own limitations. 
Yet the wheels within wheels of its own 
social arrangements are beyond measure 
bewildering to the foreigner, who has had 
it dinned into his ears that ' there are no 
class distinctions in America.' It is in the 
ranks of the bourgeoisie that the most ardent 
worshippers of money are to be found. It is 
for this huge army that certain manners and 
customs continue to exist. Its beardless, 
semi-educated youth must have its vanity 
tickled with the title of Professor ; its schools 
must continue to be institutes, academies, 
female seminaries, and the like. A more 
enlightened day in these and other respects 
dawns but slowly. Its feminine contingent 
see to it that a suit of sombre black continues 
to be the ne plus ultra of decorum for its 
masculine representatives. These are trifles 
light as air, but they lend a sameness, and at 
the same time a distinctive mark, to the other- 
wise variegated social landscape. And this 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 185 

great bourgeoisie, though stronger and more 
prominent in the Middle West than elsewhere, 
is a force throughout the whole country. 

Allusion was made in a former chapter to 
a certain dissatisfaction becoming apparent 
amongst the ' best ' people with a public- 
school system hitherto extolled as perfection, 
but which to the writer — then a new-comer 
to the country — seemed nineteen years ago 
to be capable of improvement. Intercourse 
with school-teachers in various sections, and 
with young people graduated from the public 
schools, has only served to strengthen and 
deepen this impression. The standard de- 
manded by popular opinion is low, both as 
regards teachers and scholars. An enormous 
mass of useless lumber is loaded upon the 
scholar, to be forgotten as soon as ' memo- 
rized.' Country schools are intrusted to 
teachers not only devoid of the gift of im- 
parting any knowledge they may chance to 
possess, but whose ignorance is a thing pour 
rire — mats pour rire ! Education (Heaven 
save the mark !), no matter how superficial, 
is deemed, even by men and women who 
ought to know better, the cure-all for every 



1 86 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

evil, and in hundreds of cases the remedy is 
worse than the disease. Not what shall they 
read, but that they shall read, is the shib- 
boleth best approved. 

The conspicuous dearth of good literary 
taste, so often deplored where public-school 
graduates are concerned ; the lack of desire for 
the ' higher culture ' ; the fact that grammar 
is taught by the yard in the schools, and yet 
that the inability ' of the American youth 
to write good English in his examination 
papers,' has aroused an indignant query from 
a well-known Professor at one of the great 
Universities as to whether these establish- 
ments of learning are expected to teach their 
freshmen the use of their own language 
both for pen and tongue — these and other 
hard facts are beginning to pierce the self- 
satisfaction of the average American citizen. 
To talk with a tried and competent public- 
school teacher is in itself a liberal education ; 
but what is one among so many ? The com- 
petent teacher bewails the superficiality in 
the teaching, the mass of subjects impossible 
of assimilation even if suited to the needs of 
the pupil, the number of children of all ages 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 187 

assigned to one rural school-ma'am to dis- 
cipline and instruct ; above all, the delusion 
that 'anyone can teach school.' 'All the 
reform this country needs,' exclaimed a 
public speaker lately, ' is a retrenchment in 
education and an advancement in agriculture.' 
Even in cultured Boston, the delusion that to 
train the young idea is a work for which 
the most ignorant are fitted is one that 
occasionally finds place, judging by the 
following anecdote printed in a religious 
weekly, and purporting to set forth only 
the fastidiousness of applicants in search of 
employment : 

The head of an industrial bureau asked a 
woman what she would like to do, to which, 
as always, she said, 'Anything.' 

' I asked her how she would like a cashier's 
place in a store. 

'"Oh dear no! I know nothing about 
figures, and I can hardly write." ' 

Now follows the moral of the tale : 

' Had y oil thought of teaching in a school?' 

' Oh dear no ! I thought I said I hated 
children.' And so forth. 

The head of the industrial bureau did not 



Ej* 



1 88 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

appear to be impressed with the absurdity 
of her own suggestion, but simply with the 
airs of the applicant for employment. 

Normal schools for teachers abound, and 
yet, excellent as many of these are, the 
ignorant instructors of youth are as thick as 
blackberries upon the roadside bush. Politics, 
interest— Heaven knows what not — all lend 
their quota to the trouble. Education by all 
means, but let it be the right kind, applied in 
the right manner in the right places. 

In an admirable article published recently 
in New York, attention was drawn to 
another crying evil calling for reform — 
namely, the education in Jingoism given by 
the public schools. American history is 
taught with a Jingo bias, and, to quote from 
the article, ' The one thing needful, the sine 
qua non of American citizenship, without 
which a republic constituted as is ours is 
hopeless, is not taught at all ; and that is 
political science, science of government, or 
political economy, or whatever you choose to 
call it' ' Every word of that article is true ' 
(and there was a great deal more in the same 
strain), commented a public-school youth in 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 189 

my presence, 'and I wish the schools 
would give a better education in citizenship. 
Waving the Stars and Stripes isn't all of it.' 

A teacher wrote me as follows : ' Your 
observations concerning a child's education 
in history seem to hit the mark exactly. 
About all an ordinary child knows, when he 
first begins to study history in the eighth 
grade, is that George Washington was the 
father of his country, and that it is his own 
bounden duty as a future citizen of the 
United States to hate England and love 
America with all his heart and soul. The 
last clause is all right, but I think that the 
commandment to love our neighbours is as 
essential to national harmony in national 
affairs as it is to individual harmony in 
private affairs.' 

The influential journal — and the newspaper 
in this country is the god of the superficially 
educated, or demi-semi-educated, majority — 
exerts probably more influence when it holds 
the Jingo up to ridicule than when it contents 
itself with simply scolding him. One of the 
best of these journalistic anecdotes deals with 
a bristling warrior who presented himself at 



— 



igo OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

the office of a large city newspaper, provided 
with the customary manuscript, but anxious 
before delivering it to ascertain what were 
the chances of war betwixt the United States 
and any of the other Great Powers, England 
in particular. Having been assured by the 
editor that peace for ten years at least might 
in his opinion be confidently expected, the 
warrior proceeded to hand over to the editor 
a formidable-looking document, tied with red 
tape. 

' What is it about ?' inquired the editor, 
taking it gingerly. 

The visitor straightened himself up proudly. 

1 It is an appeal, sir, to the patriots of this 
great and glorious Republic, sir, to defend the 
nation's honour at whatever cost of blood and 
treasure, sir, and that article announces that 
I desire to enlist a thousand men at once 
who will be ready at a moment's notice to 
lay down their lives, with me at their head, in 
defence of liberty and our native land. We 
must defy all foreign Governments, sir, and 
effete monarchies, and I desire to go upon 
the record, sir, as a patriot with blood to 
shed upon my country's altar.' 



WAGES, EDUCATION, AND THE JINGO 191 

The editor applauded the valour of the 
visitor, told him there were hundreds like 
him, and took the communication under 
advisement, where it still is. 

Song and story glorify the patriotism of 
the Northern soldier during the Civil War ; 
yet this glory is sadly dimmed by the scandal 
and greed connected with the Pension Roll, 
its barefaced corruption and fraud. That 
thirty odd years after the War the number of 
pensioners living on the country should be 
970,678 proves that patriotism, like other 
things, has its price. No doubt our Jingo 
friends' patriotism is after the same order. 
For the thousands of gallant soldiers who 
merited pensions for themselves or their 
families, there are other thousands who by 
their covetousness have disgraced the Union 
for which they fought ; and in nothing has 
Mr. Cleveland shown greater courage or 
endured greater obloquy than in his en- 
deavour to relieve the country in some 
measure of the burden imposed on it by 
so-called disinterested patriots. 



[ 192 ] 



CHAPTER IX. 

OURSELVES, AND OTHERS. 

And, speaking of Jingoism, it was well and 
wisely said by one having authority to pass 
judgment, that this element, so noticeable 
during the happily blown-over Venezuelan 
disturbance, owed no small share of its 
virulence to the personal feeling aroused by 
the deportment of the English individual in 
this country. The accusation is unfortu- 
nately a true one. As immigrants we cannot 
— at least, in our initiatory years — be said to 
shine. 

The reasons for this failure are various. 
We assimilate too slowly with our environ- 
ment, hug our ignorance, or our self-conceit, 
too closely — in short, we think we ' know it 
all,' and are not willing to learn. Those of 
us who have long made our home on this 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 193 

side, and count many of its people as amongst 
our dear friends, agree that we prefer to 
meet our fellow-countrymen after they have 
had time to be well aired, and have emerged 
from that crude condition which may not 
unfitly be described as ' sending home for 
our things.' After awhile even the English 
man or woman discovers that in a pro- 
gressive and civilized country ' things ' can 
actually be purchased well and cheaply. 
Perhaps four to six years is the time to 
allot to our countryman for purposes of 
growth, at the close of which period, pro- 
vided he is a hopeful member of any kind 
of society — which, alack! is far from being 
inevitably the case — he settles down into a 
citizenship, whether naturalized or otherwise, 
with which both he and his neighbours have 
reason to be satisfied. But the process 
aforesaid is to the onlooker a rather tiresome 
personally-conducted affair, doing more credit 
to the individuality of the race than to its 
intelligence. 

'Are you really English? I should never 
have suspected it !' is an observation not 
seldom made to the writer. 

13 



194 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

' Really ! And why not ?' 

' Well, you're not at all aggressively 
English.' 

As if to be aggressive and to be English 
were necessarily one and the same thing ! 

'We welcome all strangers with open 
arms,' remarked an American lady in the 
course of a discussion of this slightly un- 
pleasant subject, i.e., the English abroad, 
'and we try to make them feel at home. 
But it fatigues us to be told day after day 
how much better everything is done in 
England, and how hateful everything and 
everybody American is. After all, we are 
generally acknowledged to be a not un- 
intelligent people, and those of us who have 
been denied the privilege of a visit to 
England, and thus drawing our own com- 
parisons, grow weary of hearing ourselves 
and our institutions persistently abused. We 
must be pardoned, therefore, for avoiding 
persons who render themselves tedious, and 
for wishing that they would return to their 
own little isle of the blest. We have en- 
treated them hospitably, but we can get 
along without them very well.' 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 195 

Who of us, having once chanced to see it, 
can forget Du Maurier's admirable ' On a 
Certain Condescension in Foreigners ' ? 

1 He : Oh, you're from America, are you ? 
People often say to me : " Don't you dis- 
like Americans ?" But I always say : " I 
believe there are some very nice ones among 
them." 

- She : Ah, I dare say there may be two 
or three nice people amongst sixty millions.' 

The ' Britisher ' who comes out here with 
the idea that he can do as he likes in 
America — to employ his own expression — 
would do well to disabuse himself of that 
belief with all the expedition of which he is 
capable. 

Deny if you can, O candid reader, that 
such a scene as the following, viewed on 
Broadway, New York, at the fashionable 
hour of the day, would not cause your 
patriotic flesh to creep. You are, let us 
say, one of the passengers in a crowded 
cable-car. Suddenly you become aware that 
there is some spectacle on the side-walk 
which is attracting the attention of your 
companions — regulation New Yorkers, accus- 

13—2 



196 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

tomed to all sorts and conditions of men 
from all corners of the globe. Your well- 
dressed neighbour touches her equally well- 
appointed masculine escort, and murmurs 
in derisive accents, ' English, of course !' 
whilst a mild ripple of amusement ruffles 
the human surface around you. You look 
out, and what is this that meets your shrink- 
ing gaze ? Striding along through the loiter- 
ing stream of fashionables, tricked out in 
tweed shooting -suits and caps and huge 
shooting - boots, hands very conspicuous 
and innocent of gloves, behold your fellow- 
countrymen, the butt of gods and men ! 
Lucky for you if no cartridge-belts encircle 
their stalwart waists. And all this in the 
United States, where style ranks next to 
godliness ! 

The ideas of the average English immi- 
grant concerning this vast country and its 
inhabitants are at first, and often continue to 
be, as vague and inaccurate as those of the 
tourist who, on landing on these shores, 
wrote to relatives in England that he was 
disappointed at not being able to see Pike's 
Peak from New York, but that he expected 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 197 

to drive down to North Carolina the follow- 
ing day to call on some friends. Further- 
more, if he falls into the pit of an ' English 
set/ he is not likely to improve very much. 
Let him avoid as he would a trap its narrow 
confines. Also he will have less to blush for 
in later, better-instructed years if, after a 
limited period passed in a probably ill- 
selected corner of this great country, he 
were to refrain from wholesale criticism of 
a people concerning whom he has taken 
especial pains to know a little less than 
nothing, and whom by these manifestations 
he sometimes offends, but more often ex- 
travagantly amuses. The American, and in 
particular the educated American, is a person 
possessed of much tolerance, to which his 
sense of humour contributes not a little ; the 
airs of the unaired Englishman consequently 
afford him diversion. 

To claim that the American community in 
which the newly-arrived Englishman is apt 
to find himself is of necessity congenial or 
elevating, would be as absurd as to pretend 
that the Englishman himself is of necessity 
superior to his surroundings. American rural 



198 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

communities, if one may be permitted to 
generalize, whilst ahead of the same kind 
of community in England in some respects, 
are, in the South and West, at all events, 
distinctly behind in others. The reasons for 
their deficiencies are obvious to one who has 
spent any length of time in their midst. But 
it must never be forgotten that a large pro- 
portion of our immigrating fellow- country - 
people have not been conspicuous successes 
'at home,' and to the impartial observer have 
no solid foundation on which to build their 
ostentatious claims to superiority. And for 
his rigid inadaptability to unaccustomed 
surroundings the Englishman too often pays 
dearly, sinking lower and lower in the social 
scale, and making a failure of everything he 
attempts, until ' See what an Englishman 
can come down to !' has become a universal 
exclamation, overheard at all times and in all 
places. This is not to say that a rigid in- 
adaptability is not a virtue in the right place, 
or that the manifestation of it is not in some 
localities eminently desirable. 

But however personally distasteful the 
country community may chance to be in 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 199 

which the immigrant's lot is cast — and our 
compatriots seem to have a genius for making 
a poor selection — there is one virtue rarely- 
absent from any American community, 
whether of city or country : I allude to the 
virtue of neighbourliness. We, as a race, 
would do well to take example from it. An 
Englishwoman of my acquaintance, slowly 
coming to understand the self-imposed re- 
striction of her social instincts to the limits of 
one of the 'sets' in 'the English set,' ex- 
pressed herself once to me somewhat in this 
fashion. Needless to say, her discoveries 
offered to the old settler nothing in the way 
of novelty. 

1 Americans are so kind to one another in 
sickness or trouble ! Now, if I ask an 
Englishwoman to help some mutual acquaint- 
ance, she will be pretty sure to reply, "I'm 
too busy at home ; I really cannot go outside 
of it," or, " She's not in our set, and if we 
take her up we shall be obliged to invite her 
to our houses, and you know that won't do," 
etc. Now, this is all wrong, and yet I don't 
see how to alter it. An American woman, 
when she hears that a neighbour is in distress, 



200 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

drops everything and runs to her without a 
thought of " sets," or her own probably 
already heavy duties. And ten to one she 
carries some tempting home-made delicacy 
with her, if sickness is in the house/ 

That will be a bad day when the fashion- 
able One Hundred and Fifty of the various 
large cities succeed in sneering out of 
existence the above unique feature of true 
American life, i.e., its simplicity, its lovely 
and admirable neighbourliness. It is rare, 
indeed, to hear even the busiest of New 
York women declare that she has ' no time 
to spare r for a sick or otherwise suffering 
acquaintance, much less for a friend. Her 
social duties, her philanthropic work, her 
clubs, call her in every direction ; her 
domestic duties, compared with those of 
her English cousin, are appalling ; but her 
neighbourly duty is seldom neglected, and 
never grumbled at. No doubt the greater 
simplicity of social life as it is lived in the 
best American society — and by best I do not 
necessarily mean the wealthiest and most 
fashionable— encourages the practice of the 
more kindly virtues. The reins of the social 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 201 

law are grasped less rigidly on this side — so 
far. Formal invitations are not de rigueur for 
the assembling of congenial guests ; and the 
grace of hospitality is perhaps nowhere in 
the world beheld in such perfection. The 
well-bred American hostess possesses in the 
highest degree the art of drawing out the 
very best of which her guests are capable. 
The least brilliant of them is conscious of 
her desire that he should appear to good 
advantage rather than that she herself should 
shine. Added to all this, there is a tolerance 
of differing views, a freedom from narrowing 
'fads of the hour,' distinctive of a society 
composed of persons drawn from various 
sections of a great and varied country. 
They have no possible excuses for dulness 
or monotony. 

Indeed, it may even appear at times as if 
the American people were a conglomeration 
of as many incongruities, inconsistencies, and 
surprises as there are nationalities in its 
make-up. Yet deep down at bed-rock there 
lies but one soul, it is declared, animating 
the mass, and which on occasion, provided 
the occasion be mighty enough, will speak 



202 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

with but one voice. Nevertheless, in face 
of the swift and unexpected developments 
ceaselessly revealing themselves in the life 
of a hurrying people, who can foretell the 
future with any kind of certainty ? The old 
shibboleth has, to the attentive ear, already 
lost much of its confident ring. There is a 
new spirit abroad that watches and waits, 
prepared to be surprised at nothing. ' The 
old order changeth,' it whispers, eyes dark 
with dread and suspicion, ' yielding place to 
new ; and who is this that will fulfil himself ?' 

Admitting therefore that two kindred and 
' hard - headed ' nations have certain unex- 
pected foibles in common, we have also to 
admit that the American — perhaps because 
his emotions are nearer the surface, and 
because of his more varied origin — pre- 
sents himself to the world as a person posses- 
sing a larger capacity for inconsistency than 
the Englishman ; although the Englishman, 
too, is quite capable of giving his ' surprise- 
parties.' 

The typical American — if, indeed, it be fair, 
or even possible, to set up a type in the midst 
of such diversity — is at once imitative and 






OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 203 

independent. In the words of the Western 
Governor, quoted in a previous chapter, he 
cries, ' What have we to do with foreign 
nations, any way ?' Yet those who admire 
and value the higher traits of American in- 
dependence, and more especially those which 
give free rein to the national kind-hearted- 
ness, regardless of conventionalism or fashion, 
regret the insidious encroachment of imported 
manners and customs filtering down from the 
Upper Four Hundred to what, for want of a 
better word, we must call the great middle 
class. We, who love the people for itself, sigh 
over the evanishment of one distinctively 
American custom after another, the loss of 
simplicity, of marked characteristics, without 
appreciable gain. The moral can be pointed 
and the tale adorned by an illustration drawn 
from life on one of the fashionable road- 
ways of any large city ; a trivial illustration, 
possibly, but not without its application to 
graver matters. 

Rumbling slowly on its way towards us 
comes a cumbrous vehicle — English-built or 
imitated, it matters not which — which the 
aspiring American has recently learned to 



204 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

call by the ineffably foolish and inappropriate 
name of ' trap.' The appointments of the 
whole outfit are perfect, i.e., perfect as 
regards imitation, even to the imported 
groom sitting erect with folded arms. The 
horse, whose chief recommendation appears 
to be that he can almost knock his nose 
with his knees, frets on a stiff curb-bit, and 
labours under the weight of the compli- 
cated English harness, with its endless 
straps, buckles, and chains. Furthermore, 
he is sorely tormented by the great American 
fly, senseless and cruel Fashion having 
ordained that he shall be docked of his one 
weapon of defence. His anxious owner, 
perched high on the driving-seat, sticks his 
elbows out at the correct angles, and handles 
the reins in what he has been assured is the 
latest English style. So far, so good, in 
the English manner. Now let us see the 
American manner : 

Here he comes, with a swish of light 
wheels and a patter of light hoofs — the 
American roadster. Behind him one of 
those airy vehicles which for comfort as well 
as speed have surely never yet been touched. 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 205 

The horse is no track star, with a record 
somewhere within hailing distance of two 
minutes, but a two -sixty or three -minute 
fellow, such as the average American citizen 
likes to drives behind, with wife or daughter 
at his side — the daughter to-day, one would 
say, her face bright with the joy and ex- 
hilaration of rapid motion. With head erect, 
and large eyes filled with generous emula- 
tion, the native roadster flashes past the 
heavy-moving trap, and breasts the incline at 
a pace the mere beholding of which warms 
the blood. He carries what Colonel Dodge, 
one of the great equine authorities on this 
side, would describe as ' a poem of a tail/ in 
a proud arch. Of the admirably quiet and 
tasteful harness there is as little as is com- 
patible with safety ; the unused whip rests in 
the socket. Another moment, and the most 
perfect turn-out civilization has yet evolved 
spins over the crest of the hill and is gone. 
Such joys as these are distinctly native pro- 
ducts. Why, when he is so proud of native 
produce, does the American abandon them 
for lower pleasures — the pleasure, for in- 
stance, of imitation, of reducing everything 



206 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

and everybody to a dead level ? In certain 
forms of horseflesh, as in some other matters, 
he boasts with reason that he has the best 
the world can give ; yet, such is his in- 
consistency, he elaborately and anxiously 
forswears himself. For what ? A mere 
freak. 

We have to allow, therefore, that the 
typical American is, on the whole, more 
inconsistent than the Englishman, more 
' past finding out '; or, at least, the new- 
comer may well be pardoned for holding 
such a belief. In some rural communities 
prudish self-consciousness advances to the 
border-line of indecency, yet the wondering 
stranger perceives, nevertheless, in the pages 
of family newspapers, advertisements which 
cause the hair upon his head to rise, and the 
blood in his veins to run cold. Antres pays, 
autres mceicrs. Again, it is a nation of a 
humour fine and unsurpassed ; its wit is a 
perpetual delight. Yet now and then it 
stumbles, and then what a fall is that .! To 
the dull Briton, at whose deficiency in 
humour his livelier cousin never ceases to 
poke fun, these lapses from grace are in- 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 207 

explicable. A lack of the sense of the fitness 
of things may be more responsible for such 
lapses than actual inconsistency. The 
Presidential handshakings are among the 
ludicrous incidents of American life, in which 
the average American — we are not dealing 
here with the exceptions — sees nothing but 
what is solemn and impressive. His real 
deficiency betrays itself in trifling occur- 
rences, such as the following : A magnificent 
washstand set of the finest cut-glass, worth 
hundreds of dollars, was offered for sale in a 
famous New York emporium. Many among 
the envious went to view it. ' But one would 
not dare to use anything so valuable,' was 
the natural comment. ' Use it ! No, indeed ! 
It is not intended for use — only for orna- 
ment.' A washstand set for ornament ! 

The noisiest people on earth at once take 
pride in and bewail their nerves. Yet they 
slumber serenely — they and their babies — in 
the midst of a pandemonium such as causes 
the tortured, though supposedly thick-skinned 
and phlegmatic Briton to yearn for the quiet 
of the grave ; and, despite the taunts and 
protests of the small minority, the large 



208 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

majority continues to thrive in a bedlam of 
street and other sounds well calculated to 
drive members of any other civilized race 
to the shelter of the first convenient lunatic 
asylum. 

The citizens of a certain great city of the 
Middle West recently demanded that a bell 
which was about to be cast for one of their 
public buildings should be, not the most 
beautiful from an artistic point of view, or 
the most melodious in tone, but the loudest 
ever produced by the hand of man. The 
national holidays are remarkable principally 
for noise — senseless, rampant noise. The 
Fourth of July — a day surely filled with 
stirring and solemn memories — becomes each 
year more noted for the encouragement it 
offers to the American boy to outdo himself 
in noise and rudeness, and to banal oratory 
with a voice of brass, than to the suitable 
celebration of a tremendous national event. 
Tin horns, steam-whistles, and fire-crackers 
are deemed the fittest exponents of a great 
nation's emotions ; and the musical chimes 
ushering in a new and untried year are 
drowned in a clatter which can only be 



OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 209 

described as diabolical. The American child 
that is prevented — I do not say entreated, 
because ' prevention ' and 4 entreaty ' are not 
synonymous terms in this connection — from 
banging doors, stamping on its heels, talking 
as loud as the constitution of its lungs will 
permit, is a rara avis. Modulated tones and 
light footsteps in the mature human specimen 
are not, on this side, considered the sign- 
manual of refinement and good-breeding. 
At this point the doubt is suggested to me 
by one who has recently visited our mutual 
native land : Are they any longer considered 
so on the other side ? Quien sabe ? as the 
Mexican says. 

The American Eagle screams for the 
1 rights ' of every incapable or tyrannical 
oligarchy miscalled a republic — dubs any 
uprising anywhere, no matter how lawless 
(always provided it does not occur within 
American jurisdiction), patriotism ; whilst 
beneath its extended wings its own nurs- 
lings clamour loudly for ' rights ' of their 
own. So runs the world away. 



H 



i '""'Vfa^nW^J^^ . 



/ 



[ 2IO ] 



CHAPTER X. 

1 LAW-ABIDINGNESS ' IN THE SOUTH-WEST. 

On first settling in this section, and receiving 
the assurance, inevitable in all American rural 
communities — namely, that this particular 
community was ' remarkable for its law- 
abidingness ' — it was something of a shock 
to be told, in addition, ' But you must get 
yourself a fierce guard-dog. And, of course, 
you can fire a gun ? No ? Why, then, you 
must learn !' This to a woman of the old- 
timey kind, who can be reckoned on (always 
provided the act be unseen of men) to clap 
her hands to her ears at the first symptom 
of demonstrativeness on the part of the gun, 
and who, when personally conducting a loaded 
weapon, can with equal certainty be relied 
on to carry it at arm's length, muzzle pointed 
to the ground, and who But enough. 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 211 

Let it be said at once that the old-timey 
woman has improved, and that there was 
room for improvement. 

We are informed by Eastern authorities 
that the place of the original cowboy knows 
him no more. Having in former days de- 
picted Far Western life with the extreme of 
exaggeration, they now hasten to cover up 
their tracks with material distinguished rather 
for redundance than accuracy. Meantime, 
the cowboy still disports himself in our midst 
when so disposed ; which, fortunately for us, 
is not often. As a matter of fact, the ranchers 
of New Mexico have small reason to fear 
molestation, unless they mix themselves up 
with what we call here 'politics,' and the 
man who thrusts his hands into that blazing 
compound has no right to complain if he 
gets burned fingers instead of raisins. 

The remark made occasionally by lonely 
ranchers, to the effect that they abide in more 
fear of white men than of Mexicans, is not, 
however, without significance. The Bad Man 
of the Far West, who from the earliest days 
of American encroachment has been a potent 
factor in hindering the progress of civilization, 

14 — 2 



"*r 



212 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

and whose treachery and cruelty have scarcely 
been surpassed by the savage he so despises, 
still exists, and that not only in the commonly 
accepted type of mere barbarian. He comes 
now in less profusion, certainly, but in greater 
variety ; his talents cover a wider range. 
Having said this, it is but fair to add that the 
number of murders committed in the Territory 
is relatively small — relatively, because the 
general sense of lawlessness in the air is not 
to be denied. Where the political element is 
strong enough to poison justice at its source, 
to thwart Sheriffs in the execution of duties 
which are at best perilous and difficult, when 
the enormous size of the Territory, together 
with its imperfectly settled condition, is taken 
into account, the qualifying adjective is not 
out of place. And there are also other 
obstacles to the growth of a large and openly 
criminal class. 

' If there were more rain in this section, 
there would be more murders,' commented a 
Sheriff with whom I had been conversing 
concerning things which pertain to his 
craft. 

< How so ?' 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 213 

' Because in this arid country, with its wide 
expanses of practically untravelled desert, 
murderers and other criminals are compelled 
to return to civilization for water, even if 
they venture any distance away. Thus, we 
track them up and catch them. More water- 
holes, more criminals !' 

4 Notwithstanding these difficulties, there 
are enough murderers and cattle-thieves to 
keep you occupied ?' 

His smile responded to mine. Then he 
added soberly : 

' And there are enough bad men in this 
section, let me tell you — as bad as they 
make 'em.' 

Taken altogether, the negro is decidedly 
the intellectual superior of the Mexican, as 
a man, but not as a woman. Yet, his oft- 
times malevolent appearance to the contrary 
notwithstanding, the Mexican is not made of 
the stuff that lends itself to the commission 
of great crimes. The enormities which have 
given to the Black Belt such revolting 
prominence are in New Mexico conspicuous 
by their absence. The Mexican is, on the 
whole, fairly harmless. Everything with 



214 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

him is petty : he makes friends with the 
ranch guard-dog ; failing that, poisons him 
with strange and secret decoctions made 
of herbs ; but, if offended, he refrains from 
poisoning the rancher or his family, after the 
negro manner. It is possible that he is not 
sufficiently intelligent for such deep plotting, 
or is too timid to face probable consequences. 
At all events, having disposed of his greatest 
enemy, el perro, he prowls around the white 
man's dwelling under cover of the night, 
seeking literally what he may devour, and 
gathering up everything capable of convey- 
ance, from firewood to hives stuffed full of 
wrathful bees. 

Nothing comes amiss. Actual house- 
breaking is not to his fancy ; it is too 
dangerous, and he is not partial to danger. 
Nevertheless, he can be induced, if suitably 
entreated, to undertake even that at a pinch. 
Light-fingered and nimble, the native can 
raid your store-room whilst the cook is 
passing backwards and forwards between the 
lights ; or, as a veracious chronicler hath it, 
whisk up an oil-stove from before your door, 
and make off with it and your breakfast, 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 215 

burning hot, under your very eyes. But 
this is our tawny brother at his ' top notch ' ; 
he is not capable of such a feat every day. 
With no special inclination towards desperate 
deeds, it is asserted, by those who know, that 
his love of lucre, carefully stimulated, will 
carry him to almost any lengths ; that is to 
say, a bribe, and not a very large bribe, 
will induce him to commit a murder. 
Unprompted, Mexican murders are usually 
the result of passion superinduced by too 
much red wine, and a long knife is used for 
that business, in the Italian fashion ; or, in 
company with his kind, the native will track 
the solitary white man on the lonely desert 
trail, and strike him down for the sake of the 
few coins he may have in his pockets, and so 
leave him to the buzzards for picking and 
to the sand-storms for burial. Thus do men 
drop out of the land of the living, and the 
welcoming fires of home blaze for them in 
vain. The instinct of the Indian to waylay 
and kill his victim far from home and friends 
still lives in the Mexican, and the white man 
who essays alone the following of the desert 
trail has only himself to thank for any 



216 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

possible consequences of his foolhardiness — 
if any. 

Occasionally, as has before been hinted, 
the Mexican is substantially backed or en- 
couraged, more especially if the case is one 
of 'politics.' A few months ago a man, con- 
spicuous since the early days of American 
occupation of the Territory, not only in its 
small-beer politics, but in its greater history, 
undertook to cross forty miles of desert en 
route to a neighbouring town, accompanied 
only by his little son. From that day to 
this they have never been heard of. They 
vanished as suddenly and completely as 
though the earth had opened and swallowed 
them up. For weeks posse after posse scoured 
the country — all in vain. Conjectures were 
rife ; charges and counter-charges darkened 
the air ; the neighbourhood was for a while a 
seething pot of mutual suspicion and re- 
crimination ; large rewards were offered by 
the Governor and private persons, but the 
secret was well kept, and the vanished tell no 
tales. The most that was absolutely known 
was that the father in his legal capacity was 
engaged to proceed against certain prisoners 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 217 

in the town for which he was bound, and that 
his case was a very strong one. 

While defending the Far West — and by- 
imputation the South — from accusations of 
extreme lawlessness, it is only proper to 
suggest the existence of differing opinions as 
to the interpretation of the word ' law-abiding- 
ness.' The drifting of stray straws proves 
that the set of the wind is not yet precisely 
the same as in England or in the Eastern 
States. For instance, there is a stringent 
law forbidding the carrying of concealed 
weapons, yet it is safe to say that the terri- 
torial citizens whose pistol - pockets are 
habitually unoccupied are in the minority. 
1 Every man must look out for himself ' is 
the excuse offered, if excuses seem to be in 
even temporary demand. The striking point 
of the affair to the ' tenderfoot ' is, not simply 
that murders are comparatively rare, but the 
reason presented by a Western journal — and 
presented in sober earnest, too — for this 
condition of armed neutrality, so to speak. 
* The carrying of protective weapons by the 
citizen,' we are thus seriously informed, ' con- 
duces to the preservation of peace.' What a 



218 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

quaint, ancient-history ring have these and 
other utterances of the Great Progressive 
West ! Nous autres — we of an older civili- 
zation — are, then, as those who have been 
running over a hill and have arrived at the 
foot again. 

As for the discrepancy existing between 
the moral standards of the Far East and of 
the Far West, that is too burning a question 
to enter upon here. That such discrepancy, 
however, does exist, the Far Easterner 
realizes by slow but painful degrees. If his 
ideas concerning certain subjects partake too 
much of the 'tenderfoot' order, this is his 
misfortune, not his fault. 

Go where we will — east, west, north, or 
south — read, mark, learn, and inwardly 
digest all that a great, diversified, and pro- 
foundly interesting people sets before the 
stranger within its gates, the conclusion is 
invariably the same : This is a law-abiding 
people, influenced nevertheless largely by its 
emotions. More than this ; to quote a well- 
known Eastern journal, the organ of the 
cultured elect : ' Our system of law is ex- 
ceptionally lenient to persons charged with 



' LAW-ABIDINGNESS* IN THE SOUTH-WEST 219 

crime.' And while acknowledging the purity 
and justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, we are obliged to allow that 
to the extreme tardiness of legal action, to the 
endless quibbling which too often ends in the 
practical non-enforcement of the law's decree, 
to what has been neatly styled ' the coddling 
of murderers,' to the abuses connected with 
the selection of a jury, does the nation in large 
degree owe lynchings, lootings of banks and 
offices in broad daylight, highway and train 
robbery and wrecking, and other pastimes 
which have acquired unfortunate notoriety as 
pre-eminently ' American/ They are pre- 
eminently South-Western, perhaps, and as such 
find place in these pages, but assuredly they 
cannot be laid to the door of the favourite 
National Cat — the foreign immigrant. He 
is responsible for much, but not for all. 

There are side-issues in the game of life 
here as elsewhere, and among them the 
widespread evil of defective home-training 
plays a large part. The overwhelming mass 
of the demi-semi-educated delights in foster- 
ing in its offspring the spirit of an ill-con- 
ceived liberty, License masquerading under 



--* -->".— TV" .-""-'-* .."ii-JJ.". I .,«_ ■•■W^^^H 



220 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

an honoured name. From this class spring 
miseries great and small — from the petty, 
nerve-destroying woes laid on the shoulders 
of the much-enduring American housewife, 
up to the tragedy of the boy train-wrecker, 
the hoodlum of the street, the various ills 
which are the result of uncontrolled, undis- 
ciplined homes. That freedom of the boy and 
girl only too easily degenerates into license, 
every newspaper daily reveals ; nothing short 
of a wilful optimism can blind the eyes to 
certain glaring facts. 

Defaulting treasurers and cashiers, dis- 
honest bank presidents — too many of them 
described as ' having been prominent in 
church circles ' — swell the ranks of the 
criminals. Worse still, if convicted by a 
jury of their fellow-citizens, the court will 
in numerous instances, and on a mere legal 
technicality, wipe out the indictment ; or 
should punishment be awarded, its term is 
cut short by a too lenient Governor, or even 
by the President himself. In the words of 
a righteously indignant citizen concerning a 
particularly flagrant case : ' We have put a 
premium on crime for a long number of 



' LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 221 

years, until we have lost our money, and our 
reputation for honesty is a thing of the past. 
. . . Treasurer after treasurer defaults, and 
not one is punished. It is a wonder the 
country stands at all, and a wonder the 
people have borne it as they have.' 

Less prone, on the whole, to the absurd 
and trivial crazes which too often make the 
inhabitants of our own tight little isle the 
laughing-stock of gods and men, the Ameri- 
can people is nevertheless subject to attacks 
of emotionalism or sentimentality unworthy 
a nation priding itself on its good sense. 
These attacks are not confined to the un- 
disciplined. Sentimentality obtrudes its in- 
opportune personality in various unexpected 
spots, confusing with its clamour a difficult 
foreign policy, encouraging lawlessness and 
the tramp curse, lending its aid to the mal- 
administration of justice, confounding un- 
repented-of wrong -doing with unmerited 
suffering, exalting criminals into martyrs, 
and largely complicating a problem already 
sufficiently abstruse — the Labour Question. 
In England, too, where 'good horse-sense' 
is said to reign, emotionalism almost as con- 



222 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

stantly drives reason from the field. It is 
not long since a perfect furore of excitement 
was aroused there by the sensational speeches 
and recitals of a coloured woman in regard 
to an evil of which only one side could by 
natural sequence be presented — and that, 
moreover, to audiences for the most part 
ignorant of the environment which produces 
lynch law, still more so of its causes. Carried 
away, nevertheless, by that form of senti- 
mentalism which is as a lion in the path of 
the practical reformer, they arose with an 
impetuosity inflamed by ignorance — to get a 
snubbing on this side for ' interference ' and 
1 meddlesomeness,' with the advice thrown 
in that they would do better to clean out 
their own stables before howling at the con- 
dition of those of their neighbours. 

To consider this horrible matter of lynch- 
ing with a proper amount of dispassionate- 
ness is indeed no easy task. To enlarge on 
its horror and wrong is superfluous. But 
even here the old adage that from wrong is 
born wrong finds place, and no one personally 
acquainted with the conditions prevailing in 
some sections of this country, more particu- 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 223 

larly in the South and South - West, can 
honestly declare lynch law to be practised 
anywhere without some reason for its being. 
Yet it is just these reasons which are so con- 
tinually overlooked, even by those who should 
know better than to ignore them. How 
much more so, then, by foreigners, unaware 
of their very existence ? 

To go backwards. California was settled 
and made habitable for the decent classes by 
lynch law. It was the only law which fulfilled 
its promises to the people and gave them 
that protection, bereft of which civilized life is 
impossible. It was in many respects, and 
certainly in its ultimate results, a beneficent 
institution, and the judgment of posterity is 
compelled, however reluctantly, to endorse 
its work. Now, in presumably civilized 
times, what are the conditions which can 
permit of its continued existence in any 
corner of a great and progressive country ? 

Let us deal primarily with the legal con- 
ditions ; or, to be more accurate, with the law 
as it is enforced. It is, nominally at least, 
the people's privilege to make their own 
laws, and once made it is the people's duty 



224 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

to see that they are enforced, and to uphold 
the Sheriff in his endeavours to protect his 
prisoner from the mob. * So far, so good,' 
retort the people ; ' but the criminal protected, 
the authorities fail in their part. Astute 
lawyers find ground for appeal after appeal, 
and finally, on some purely legal technicality, 
the prisoner gets off with slight or no punish- 
ment, and is soon turned loose again to 
repeat his vile offence. There will always 
be found citizens who will not submit to 
this, and who, if the law fails in its duty, 
will be unto themselves a law, and protect 
their own homes and families as best they 
can.' That this accusation can be made, 
and in a measure truthfully, is a fact which 
may well cause those carried away by a 
natural and proper horror of lynching to 
pause and consider. Abuse is no argument. 
The skilful physician probes for the bullet 
before attempting to heal the wound. 

Mention has already been made of the 
legal delays so common in this country, and 
it may be added that the opinion of a certain 
Eastern journal quoted above finds an echo 
in the hearts of all thoughtful and honestly 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS* IN THE SOUTH-WEST 225 

patriotic citizens. The editorial alluded to 
proceeds to point out the necessity the judge 
is under of ruling all doubtful points in 
favour of the prisoner, the studied accumula- 
tion of confusing evidence, in the sorting of 
which the jury can expect little aid from a 
judge, himself beset and harassed by counsel. 
' The tolerance of such abuses as now per- 
vert a murder trial with us into an elaborate 
piece of machinery to secure an acquittal or 
a mis-trial turns justice into a mockery, and 
puts a premium on crime.' This is a hard 
saying, and no doubt has aroused indignant 
disclaimers, yet it is an open secret that, if 
justice were done, more than one of the self- 
appointed rulers of an Eastern city — now 
temporarily snowed under by the righteous if 
long-delaying wrath of its best citizens — ought 
to be looking through prison-bars ; and any- 
one who has lived a few years on this side 
knows to what divers uses the plea of ' Self- 
defence/ cleverly and unscrupulously handled, 
can be put. That the condition of affairs 
described above is not confined to the State 
of New York, no one in the full possession 
of his faculties can deny. Even should the 

15 



226 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

words quoted be deemed an exaggeration of 
facts, the influence of corrupt politicians, 
present in the courts of justice as every- 
where else, must always be taken into 
account ; and in an address delivered to a 
large audience not a year ago, a prominent 
judge called attention in scathing terms to 
the inadequate number of convictions as 
compared with the number of proven 
criminals. 

If it be conceded, then, in regard to this 
matter of lynching, that in some sections at 
least exasperated communities have cause for 
loss of faith in those whose duty it is to pro- 
tect them from dangerous persons, we must 
go a little further yet and take into considera- 
tion the hideous provocation that turns for 
the nonce apparently civilized men into brute 
beasts. Yet hitherto every attempt to con- 
front this difficult question with moderation, 
or in the spirit of equity, has been looked on 
with distrust and suspicion by those removed 
from the scene of action ; while at the same 
time it is admitted that the root of the trouble 
remains to all intents and purposes untouched. 
Misplaced sentiment concerning the criminal 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 227 

combines with the law's miscarriage to ob- 
struct reform ; and it may safely be asserted 
that the large majority of sober citizens in 
the 'lynching sections,' while bewailing cer- 
tain horrible occurrences, bewail also the 
circumstances encouraging them. Right or 
wrong, exaggerated or no, this is the pre- 
valent view. 

In the crusades against lynching, especially 
when negroes are the victims, the fact that it 
is the brutal bestiality of the offender which 
has aroused the worst passions of his chas- 
tisers is overlooked — that is, by outsiders not 
comprehending the situation. An ill-informed 
person reading or giving ear to the crusaders' 
outpourings might well believe the object of 
mob- violence to be an innocent martyr. In 
their hysterical clamour against what they 
falsely term persecution of the poor negro, 
and in righteous wrath at the sickening mode 
of punishment occasionally meted out to him, 
the crusaders aforesaid, hailing from both 
sides of the ocean, plunge alike into that fatal 
error of sentimentalism. True, it is but in 
one or two of the South-Western States — and 
those, generally speaking, roughly settled — 

15—2 



228 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

that mob violence in its most repulsive form 
has occurred. A short shrift and a speedy 
end is the common form of procedure. But 
even at the worst there are circumstances to 
be considered over and above the loss of 
faith in legal authority — redress, alas ! there 
cannot be — circumstances which, while very 
far from being extenuating, assuredly deserve 
attention. 

That the negro excites mob violence with 
considerably more frequency than does the 
white man is a fact at once accurate and 
misleading. To anyone familiar with the 
South it needs no explanation. ' Perse- 
cution ' is not a factor, the case being 
merely that the negro is so constant an 
offender. 

From the early days of the exploration of 
New Mexico, when Black Estevan, the com- 
panion of Fray Niza, lost his life at the 
hands of the original inhabitants, up to the 
present time, history repeats itself. The 
Indian braves avenged their squaws in the 
savage manner, and nineteenth-century civili- 
zation continues to record the crime and its 
punishment in characters as savage. The 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 229 

particular form of iniquity for which the 
negro is distinguished is very rare in Mary- 
land, Virginia, and the Carolinas ; but in 
every step taken Southward and Westward 
the black mark against his name grows 
blacker. 

That this crime is on the increase, and that 
it acts as a perpetual menace to society, is, to 
scientific men, a curious and interesting cir- 
cumstance, affording data for pathological 
study lying deeper than the one or two 
obvious reasons which to superficial observers 
seem to cover the ground ; but to the rela- 
tives, or too often the survivors, of the victims, 
the matter has long since become too serious 
for calm consideration and inquiry. We may 
deplore the fury of madness, the agonized 
rage of grief, which seizes on fathers of inno- 
cent little ones and helpless women done to 
death by worse than fiends ; we may shudder 
and sicken at the awful vengeance taken by 
entire communities ; but should we let this 
blind us to the magnitude of the provocation ? 
That whole audiences can be wrapped in an 
exaltation of sympathy for the offender, with- 
out apparently a single thought for the 



230 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

wrecked homes, the ruined or extinguished 
lives, the blasted innocence — worst of all 
for the young children — would be in- 
credible were it not for one's familiarity with 
the apparently inexhaustible fund of senti- 
mentality, i.e., misplaced sentiment, at the 
command of the two nationalities who have 
pre-empted a claim on the good, hard sense 
of the world. Some more drastic and com- 
mon-sense remedy than hysterical ebullitions 
must be applied if the evil of lynching is to 
receive a permanent check. Better is it to 
inquire into causes than to rail at results. 

There is yet another form of emotionalism 
— if so it may be called. It is that which 
makes a slave of the servant of the Republic, 
or at best renders independence of thought 
or action on his part a matter of supreme 
difficulty. 

In the words of a notable college Presi- 
dent : ' The independent thinker or actor, 
or the public servant, when his thoughts 
or acts run counter to prevailing popular or 
party opinions, encounters sudden and intense 
obloquy, which to many temperaments is very 
formidable. That habit of submitting to the 



' LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 231 

opinion of the majority which democracy- 
fosters, renders the storm of detraction and 
calumny all the more difficult to endure, 
makes it, indeed, so intolerable to many 
citizens that they will conceal or modify their 
opinions rather than endure it.' 

In the face of this assertion, the private 
citizen of the United States exhibits in argu- 
ment a toleration, a courtesy, which his 
British contemporary would do well to imi- 
tate ; and the American people as a whole 
stand easily ahead of other civilized nations 
in a good-natured optimism, and a rooted 
dislike to grumbling, occasionally carried to 
excess. In the mass, however, it presents 
but little resistance to any strong wave of 
emotion — especially if this wave be started by 
misplaced compassion, and fostered by the 
proverbial recklessness and irresponsibility 
of the daily press. 

To say that the worshippers of Freedom 
have created some of the worst forms of 
slavery is but to repeat a truism. The pages 
of American history are darkened by deeds 
which may well come under the head of 
oppression. The Indian, nay, the Chinaman 



232 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

of to-day, mention of whom has been made 
in a former chapter, are not without their 
wrongs. The Puritan proved himself a past- 
master in the art of religious persecution, and 
the working man of this enlightened day pays 
sometimes with his life for venturing to work 
out his own salvation. * The characteristic 
of the average Congressman which has im- 
pressed me most,' observes a member of the 
House of Representatives — who has himself 
borne obloquy bravely, ' because his cause 
was just,' and because he has unlimited faith 
in ' the sober second thought of the people ' — 
' and which is, I think, at once most striking 
and most humiliating, is his cringing to public 
opinion ... a mad desire to ascertain what 
is popular, and do it, regardless of its wisdom 
or its consequences." 

In the excitement of the Presidential cam- 
paign it was recently openly announced that 
it was useless for the District Court of a cer- 
tain State to attempt to hold a session, for 
the reason that an honest and impartial jury 
could not be found until after the election ; 
political bias would influence all verdicts. 

Emotionalism, as it affects the application 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 233 

of the law, has of late presented itself in 
several striking examples, of which two will 
serve for illustration. 

During the trial of a celebrated murder 
case in a large Western city, popular opinion 
affirmed that no jury would dare to oppose 
its verdict pronouncing the prisoner to be 
guilty. True or untrue, the result was as 
prophesied, and the prisoner was condemned, 
though not without the bitter protests of the 
small minority, who declared that he had not 
received fair play. 

The other incident took place in a small 
city of the South-West. Shorn of all voci- 
ferous details in no manner affecting the 
question at issue, .the story was briefly this : 
A wife, whose husband during her pro- 
longed absence from home was faithless, 
upon her return shot the offending woman. 
There were, doubtless, extenuating circum- 
stances, but with these, or the sin of the 
guilty man and his partner in crime, we 
have nothing to do. The striking feature in 
the affair was the gush of sentimentality over 
the murderess in the public prints, the rhap- 
sodies indulged in concerning ' the little 



234 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

woman ' and her ' refined, worn face,' her 
1 pathetic history,' etc. One would have said 
that such a fatuous exhibition of misplaced 
sentiment was enough to disgust all right- 
thinking citizens. Not at all ; the disgusted 
ones were in the small minority. By far the 
larger half of the city was at the murderess's 
feet, worshipping her as an up-to-date martyr 
and saint. 

Now, what were the facts of the case ? 
Had this wronged wife, in a moment of 
ungovernable grief and despair, caught up 
a revolver and fired at her enemy whilst 
frenzied and scarcely responsible ? Again, 
no ! Not only had she carefully cleaned and 
loaded the weapon beforehand, but she had 
set her son — her young son — to watch for 
the passing of her rival, and when the child 
gave notice of the woman's approach, she 
stepped out and deliberately shot her, sea- 
soning the act with language expressed in 
the newspaper type by dashes. Instanta- 
neously the city went into hysterics of sym- 
pathy ; the gruesome incident of the child, 
the setting of her own selfish instincts above 
the purer claims of motherhood, passed un- 



'LAW-ABIDINGNESS* IN THE SOUTH-WEST 235 

regarded. Needless to say that not a jury- 
could be found to convict ; and, indeed, who 
would desire in such a case to see the death 
penalty inflicted ? But that a murderess 
should escape, not only unpunished, but re- 
warded and glorified, is not only a grave 
reflection upon law and morality, but upon 
Christianity as it is practised, too. ' Are we, 
or are we not, a Christian people ?' quoth the 
few. ' Is not the religion we profess that of 
love and forgiveness, and " Thou shalt do- no 
murder " ? If so, then there can be no com- 
promise.' 

As in the evil treated of earlier, here 
also one wrong springs from another. The 
custom, almost universal in some sections, 
of permitting, nay, even encouraging, a 
wronged husband to avenge himself as he 
will, without fear of the law, was simply in 
this case applied to the wronged wife. 
' Public feeling ' is often quoted as being 
responsible for many things that hinder the 
higher civilization in an emotional people. 

One who has watched through a score of 
years the fluctuating fortunes of a great and 
impressive nation, and has long outgrown 



236 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

British prejudices as such, may perhaps be 
allowed to express the opinion that English 
law is more impartially administered, is less 
swayed by passion or corrupt influences, than 
law on this side. The opinion is expressed 
deliberately, and is the fruit of long observa- 
tion. It received a curious corroboration, and 
from a most unexpected source, a short time 
before the penning of these words. The source 
was a violently patriotic — in fact, bigoted — 
American citizen, expecting to remove tem- 
porarily from a home in a Far Western State 
in order to reside for awhile in British Colum- 
bia. The letter ran somewhat in this wise: 
' It will be a relief to live under the English 
flag. One can always be sure then of law 
and order, and of strict justice impartially 
administered.' Nothing was written in reply 
to this startling observation, but a good deal 
was thought. 



[ 237 ] 



CHAPTER XL 

THE NORTHERN MYSTERY. 

' For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting 
All the fever of some differing soul. 
Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 
Undistracted by the sights they see, 
These demand not that the things about them 
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.' 

M. Arnold. 

* The romance of a prehistoric age broods 
over this wonderful country. ' # 

A ' wonderful country ' indeed to him who 
has eyes to see, and a mind with which to 
dream backward. To him who has neither, 
a poor place, perhaps — of interest only to 
health-seekers and fruit-growers. 

No need here to go to prehistoric times 
for the finding of romance. The mountains 

* ' The Story of New Mexico,' H. O. Ladd. 



238 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

hold it in their own still hearts ; the desert, 
in its blank, remorseless spaces, covers dry- 
bones of dead men out of mind and for- 
gotten ; the wind that bows and sighs through 
the white nights in the bosks by the errant 
river's bed breathes the weird, strange 
tale. 

To go back to the beginning of the desert 
is beyond the imagining of man. Centuries 
before the advent of the Spaniard, a great 
tribal people, cunning in the arts, building 
them dwellings of stone such as they that 
came after had not wit to build, was even 
then passing away. But what of the centuries 
preceding ? What of the prehistoric past ? 
The wide and battlemented horizon under 
the glittering arch of the sky is dumb. It 
betrays nothing — conceals so much. In that, 
perhaps, lies part of the secret of its power 
over us — its pregnant silence. 

Those who are sent to this far corner of 
the earth to seek health know little, really, 
even of what can be known of the ' wonderful 
country ' ; the distances are too great, the 
desert and mountain tracks too rough for 
extensive research. Its canons green with 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 239 

live-oaks and ferns, and alive with babbling 
springs, its terrific precipices and lofty peaks, 
its natural water - tanks surrounded with 
verdant lawns and leafy trees, and kept filled 
by mountain- storms — all these may, indeed, 
be occasionally enjoyed ; but its pueblos 
and cliff-dwellings, and other relics of the 
historic past — the Indian tribes of the Arid 
Belt, who yet preserve ancient manners 
and customs replete with interest for the 
traveller — all these are not for the health- 
seeker. 

The discovery of New Mexico and Arizona 
belongs rightly to the age of miracles. Ex- 
plorations of more recent years pale before 
those of the sixteenth century. Even the 
tales of American pioneers — reaching back- 
ward a scant half-century, and teeming as 
they are with peril and hardship manfully 
endured, while the prairie-schooners toiled 
painfully, month after month, across the con- 
tinent—lose something of their glory when 
we turn to trace the footsteps of the pioneers 
of Old Spain. 

Without guide, without accurate know- 
ledge of the great * Northern Mystery/ 



= 



240 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

they set forth in small companies, in 
the bliss of an ignorance which our later 
wisdom scorns. Torn by thorns of cactus 
and mesquite, stumbling with bleeding feet 
over rocky mountains whose summits they 
must scale ere the path through the unknown 
could be discovered, ankle-deep in sand or 
tangled in dense bosks beside streams too 
often dry, under burning suns, whipped by 
sand-storms, always hoping for sight of an 
ocean far beyond their ken, uncertain whether 
life or death was to be their portion when by 
chance they lighted on some native settle- 
ment, they attempted the impossible — and 
succeeded ! 

Six times the banner of Spain was raised, 
more often than not by devoted friars, only 
to fall again. Spanish blood was sprinkled 
freely over valley, mesa, and mountain ; 
yet finally the sturdy friars and soldiers 
not only won, but for three centuries — with 
the exception of, in 1680, a ten-year orgie of 
native freedom — kept what they had so dearly 
bought. 

In 1538 Fray Niza and the negro Estevan 
— and later, Coronado — tempted by strange 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 241 

tales of the wealth to be found in the land 
of the Northern Mystery, began their ex- 
plorations ; and, after inconceivable toil and 
hardship, came upon a fairly friendly agri- 
cultural people, living in large communal 
buildings, or pueblos, made of the same clay 
bricks with which we build to-day, or else 
having their homes (as in Southern New 
Mexico) in separate family houses. 

1 Here,' writes Mr. Bancroft of the Territory 
within recent years, ' we find a people far in 
advance of the savage tribes, if far behind 
the highest types, retaining many of their 
original characteristics, and living on the same 
sites in buildings similar to, or in several in- 
stances perhaps identical with, those occu- 
pied by their ancestors at the coming of the 
Europeans, and for centuries later.' To the 
antiquary, or the traveller interested in the 
past, New Mexico and Arizona are full of 
historic lore and unsolved problems, as well 
as of romance. 

With respect to the early pioneers, native 
friendliness was not always justified. Greed 
and cruelty and broken vows marked too 
often the trail of the conquering Spaniard, 

16 



242 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

arousing in the Indian terror and anger, with 
their inevitable concomitants. 

The Franciscan friars, while not invested 
with authority to found missions, as were the 
Jesuits in California, and acting simply as 
parish priests, swept, nevertheless, into the 
drag-net of the Church hundreds of Indian 
4 converts.' 

Following the usual custom of their order, 
they hurried from pueblo to pueblo, regard- 
less of personal labour or peril, and having 
extracted by bribes, threats, or cajoleries, 
permission to baptize the children, proceeded 
on their way entirely satisfied with what they 
had accomplished. Above all alluring to the 
grown Indian was the prospect held out by 
the Church of continually recurring feast- 
days and holidays ; and as time went on, 
and the natives became more and more sub- 
servient to Spanish rule, and the friars settled 
down ' to preach, teach, and say prayers,' 
these fiestas grew to be the strongest hold 
possessed by Mother Church over an in- 
dolent, ease-loving people. And as it was 
then, so is it now. Mexicans and Indians 
alike find in their religion much solace for 






THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 243 

muscles averse to toil, and ready at a moment's 
notice to relax in slumber beneath the shade 
of a cottonwood-tree, or to let their owners 
flop in crumpled heaps against a sun-baked 
wall. 

The old friars were wily, if not always 
very wise. Above everything, they had the 
courage of their opinions. They carried their 
lives in their hands, and yielded them un- 
complainingly should the mood of their flock 
set that way. Betwixt Franciscans and Jesuits 
there was, during Spanish rule, a perpetual 
rivalry — if rivalry it can be called, when one 
side has distinctly the mastery ; but with the 
importation by Bishop Lamy, in 1854, of 
French priests and sisters, the Jesuits in their 
turn won the ascendancy. 

When, in the course of years of inter- 
mittent struggle and warfare, New Mexico 
was at last conquered by Spain, and Onate, 
the first Governor, was appointed, his route 
lay from what is now the border-city of El 
Paso up the fertile Valley of Mesilla and the 
Rio Grande to Albuquerque, two hundred 
miles distant. Paso del Norte, the Pass of 
the North, was even then a settlement, and 

16 — 2 



244 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

situated, even as the modern city is, between 
lofty mountains — the gateway at once of Old 
and New Mexico and of Texas. Along this 
broad vale, finding comparatively smooth and 
easy travelling beside the Great River, the 
feet of bygone generations, ' whose bones 
are dust,' have passed and passed again, 
within sight and sound of my brown ranch- 
house ; nay, even perhaps through its 
orchards and meadows, so changeful has 
been the river's bed. 

Three hundred years ago and more, Indian 
tribes rejoiced in the fertility of a valley 
which satisfied their limited wants at cost of 
so slight an expenditure of tissue, and after 
them the Mexicans rejoice in much the same 
spirit. But the Indians had one resource 
which has somehow failed us of a later 
generation. When the Rio Grande played 
them false, there was for them no sitting 
down in resignation after the American 
manner, no folding of the hands to sleep 
after the Mexican manner, but instead they 
uprose as one man, and, having slain a young 
virgin in order to propitiate the god of waters, 
confidently awaited results. At this point 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 24$ 

history provokingly stops short, leaving the 
rest to our imagination. 

The system of peonage, or servitude for 
debt, introduced by the Spaniards, and not 
abolished until 1867, made of the Indian, 
and in his turn the composite Mexican, a 
veritable bond - slave. Curiously enough, 
however, the records tell of little or no 
rebellion under the yoke. It appears to 
have been considered by all parties con- 
cerned an equitable arrangement, and as 
such was recognized by law. The father 
dead, it was slipped upon the neck of the 
son, bowed to receive it. The larger number 
of the Mexicans inhabiting our valley at one 
time wore this yoke ; that is to say, they 
were peons. The custom, abolished in New 
Mexico by Act of Congress, still exists, I 
am assured, in portions of Old Mexico, 
together with numerous other obsolete 
manners and customs. Except that the 
peon could not be sold by his master, his 
condition was worse by many degrees than 
that of the negro in the Southern States 
before the Civil War. 

As the years rolled on after the Spanish 



246 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

settlement, and New Mexico was governed 
with more or less of tyranny, according to 
the whims of the acting Governor, whether 
Spaniard or Mexican, the changes and dis- 
turbances in Old Mexico — notably, the revolt 
from Spanish dominion in 1831 — began 
seriously to affect the colony. 

During the war between the United States 
and Mexico in 1846, General Kearney was in- 
structed to carry his forces into New Mexico 
and take possession when, where, and how he 
could, but peaceably if possible. By promising 
to the Indians and colonists a greater freedom 
than they had hitherto enjoyed, Kearney, in 
spite of some opposition from Armijo, the 
braggart Governor, carried out his instructions 
almost to the letter, and the Stars and Stripes 
were soon floating over the capital. But the 
southern portion of the territory, including 
the Mesilla Valley, did not come under 
American jurisdiction until eight years later, 
when it was purchased from Mexico, together 
with the southern portion of Arizona ; and 
not until 1863 did the protracted struggle to 
make of Arizona a Territory separate and 
distinct end in victory. 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 247 

The years that followed Kearney's suc- 
cessful expedition, while bringing, as was 
promised, a larger freedom to New Mexico, 
were stained on the part of the Americans 
with deeds of individual brutality and 
shamelessness. White adventurers and ' bad 
men ' from California and Texas made the 
names of those States an ill savour in the 
nostrils of both Mexicans and Indians ; and 
when during the Civil War Texas looked 
confidently to New Mexico to wave the 
Southern flag, the sins of her own sons rose 
to witness against her, and a sullen silence 
answered her appeals. Without enthusiasm, 
but likewise without wavering, the Territory 
retained her grasp on the skirts of the Union, 
and the Texan Invincibles hastened home- 
wards, a draggled crew, adown the Valley of 
the Rio Grande, their dreams of conquest 
buried for ever in the desert sand. 

And now we turn to a page scarcely more 
encouraging, the page that records the well- 
worn tale of Governmental folly, and worse, 
as regards the Indians, and which is scarce 
concluded even at the present hour, though 
dragging to its end. As late as 1883, that 



248 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

same folly, to call it by no harder name, 
resulted in our Valley alone in such slaughter 
of white settlers that our village then and 
there earned the ominous title of Las Cruces 
(The Crosses). Without indulging in false 
sentiment concerning Indian matters — false 
sentiment being the form of folly most 
affected by the average philanthropist 
(Indian) — no one acquainted with the rela- 
tions existing for many years betwixt white 
man and brown can question the justice of 
Mr. Bancroft's strictures. ' This wasteful 
and bloody war,' he says, alluding to that 
waged with the notorious Apache chief, 
Victorio, ' was the result of the greed of the 
white settler and the corrupt policy of the 
United States Government.' 

The dealings of the Government with 
a dependent race have certainly not been 
either happy or creditable, nor do they 
afford the desired shining example to 
older and, to use a popular term, ' effete ' 
nations. 

But the time-worn scandal of ' Indian 
agents,' and Indian affairs generally, needs 
not to be discussed here ; yet whilst abhor- 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 249 

ring the sickly effusiveness which weeps 
over a Victorio or a Geronimo, one's sense 
of justice, or even of ordinary humanity, con- 
temns equally the bad faith, the blundering, 
the breaking of treaties, which blot the page 
recording the dealings of a superior race with 
an inferior ; and which assuredly were not 
calculated to root out of the savage nature 
the treachery and cruelty inherent in it by 
right of birth. Neither is there anything 
new or original in the observation that the 
military leaders in the Far West proved 
themselves time and again more competent 
to deal at once fairly and firmly with the 
Indians than did their, official superiors in 
the East. Many a name on the army roll 
stands out bright and unblemished above the 
hopeless fog of Governmental ignorance, im- 
becility, or corruption. 

Comparatively few years have elapsed 
since white settlers and their families faced 
great and manifold dangers in making their 
homes in New Mexico and Arizona. Even 
the Mexican, though mortally afraid of the 
Indian, was not himself entirely reliable. 
When carried away by excitement, or when 



250 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

full of wine, occasions arose on which his 
feelings were too many for him. Now, on 
Saturday and Sunday nights, he races his 
unhappy pony up and down the roads, 
screeching and firing his pistol into empty 
air. This is a comparatively innocuous mode 
of letting off steam, and robs us only of the 
sleep of peace. But some years back he was 
not quite such a harmless idiot. 

The wife of a Government forage-agent 
told me that on entering, with her husband 
and children, the Mexican village in which 
the store was to be opened, the party was 
greeted with a volley by the native inhabi- 
tants. By a miracle the whole family escaped 
uninjured, and on being remonstrated with, 
their assailants excused themselves on the 
plea of a desire to ' show off' ! The first 
thing the Mexican does when scared or 
excited is to shoot, and this practice, when 
he chanced, as in former days, to be in con- 
flict with his more wily and self-contained 
Indian kinsman, proved often disastrous to 
himself. Yet it was on such allies as these 
that the forage- agent's wife and children had 
to depend when, in one of the husband's 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 251 

necessary absences on Government business, 
the store was attacked by Indians. 

Her sons too young to be of any assistance, 
this white woman became in a moment the 
life and spirit of the defence. It was she 
who armed and encouraged the Mexicans, 
steadied their quailing hearts, and herself 
set them the example of loading and firing 
through the loopholes of the barricades she 
had forced them to erect. It was a mother 
fighting for the lives of her children — inci- 
dentally for her own life or her honour. 

Sitting listening to the recital in the peace 
of the warm, bright morning, the big lads, 
who were then babies, lingering to hear 
again the oft-told tale, the peal of distant 
church - bells floating across wide alfalfa 
meadows, and the hum of bees in the ears, 
it was given to these listeners to wonder 
whether the same cool, brave spirit that 
animated the woman before them would 
have animated themselves in like emergency. 

' You cannot possibly tell till you are. tried,' 
was the quick retort ; and to this manifest 
truism what was there to say ? 

Thereupon up spoke the father and hus- 



252 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

band in his turn, and told how on that night 
of terror, riding for home and all that was 
in it, he drew rein on the ridge above the 
village, and beheld far below him fire and 
smoke — the annihilation of his little world. 

'In that moment,' he said, 'thirty years 
were added to my life. Driving the spurs 
into my horse, and followed by my two com- 
panions, I tore like a madman down the hill- 
side, to what I believed was certain death 
amidst the ruins of my home.' 

Then, greeting the thunder of the horses' 
hoofs, a challenge rang out into the night — 
' And those flames were the camp-fires of 
United States troopers, and my home was 
undespoiled, my wife and babies safe, and the 
thirty years I had gained upon that ridge 
dropped from me like a mantle !' 

Still more recently a mother and daughter, 
missionaries in a remote Mexican village, 
were awoke one morning by the terrified 
natives with the news that a band of Apaches 
had encamped in the neighbourhood during 
the night. For over a week the inhabitants 
of the village dwelt in mortal fear, yielding 
to the Indians all that they demanded in the 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 253 

way of food - supplies, but otherwise un- 
molested. Then the day came on which the 
Apaches took the warpath, and painted and 
bedecked up to and beyond the eyes, and 
ripe for mischief, the braves galloped through 
the settlement. Trembling, the two white 
ladies and the Mexicans awaited their return. 
But return they never did. The United 
States trooper is rarely caught napping. 
Untiring as the Indian himself, skilled in all 
the arts of Far Western warfare, fearless to 
a fault, he scents danger a hundred miles 
away, and is soon on the trail of the savage 
warrior. 

Sometimes in those stormy times he came 
a little late, but come he always did, and 
many a nameless hero has given his life 
in Indian skirmishes. On this occasion — 
and it was one of the very last in Apache 
history — the rage for blood took so sudden 
possession of the braves that, before being 
caught and punished, they were able to raid 
a white man's ranch outside the village, kill 
and scalp the owner and his wife, and pin 
the babies to the wall of the house with their 
spears. One child — an infant in long clothes 



254 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

— was found on the following day still quiver- 
ing with a semblance of life. Who, after 
such scenes as these — and there were many- 
like them — can wonder at the wail of mingled 
wrath and grief rending the air of the Terri- 
tories when the Government determined to 
spare the life of the captured Geronimo ? 
# * * # # 

But no outline of territorial history, how- 
ever sketchy in intention, would be complete 
without some allusion to the Bad Man 
and the Cattle- war. It is not the Indian 
only who provides the red paint for our 
drawing. 

Less than twenty years ago an individual, 
for whom the name of French will do as 
well as any other, put several thousand head 
of cattle to grazing in a certain valley of 
Southern New Mexico. So well did his 
venture answer that other persons followed 
his example, among them a young English- 
man of high character, and possessed of 
laudable ambition, who may pass here by the 
name of Morton. He succeeded also ; but, 
not content with mere money-making, so 
beautified and improved his ranches as to 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 255 

excite the envy and malice of the rough 
cattlemen. In short, his success and himself 
were displeasing to them. 

Just about this time an incident occurred 
in one of the cities of the Territory, which, 
slight as it appeared, was nevertheless des- 
tined to affect very materially the lives of 
several hundred human beings. A young 
dish-washer, ill-used by a big and burly man- 
cook, drew his pistol and wounded his assail- 
ant. The boy then took refuge in flight, 
and days after turned up, weary and half 
starved, at the ranch occupied by Morton. 
The wanderer was none other than he who 
was soon to become notorious under the 
pseudonym of Billy the Kid. Sheltered and 
cared for by the Englishman, the boy repaid 
his protector with a passionate devotion rarely 
equalled. The wiseacres assure us that good 
cannot spring out of evil ; nevertheless, we 
all know how discouragingly often evil springs 
out of good. 

For while these small matters were taking 
place on Morton's ranch — the blossom and 
then the fruit of gratitude and affection 
developing in proper season — the cattle-men 



256 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



were bringing their devilish schemes to a 
head. Determined to get rid of their rival, 
they induced the Sheriff to issue a warrant 
for his arrest, and served it on him them- 
selves. Conscious of innocence, and anxious 
at once to clear his character and comply 
with the law, the young man left his home 
in charge of Billy, and rode away with the 
posse. 

It was night, and he was somewhat in 
advance of his companions. Riding into a 
hollow crossed by the trail, he was fired 
upon by the men in his rear, and his body 
abandoned to the crows and buzzards. 

From the moment that the news of the 
tragedy reached the boy on the ranch, he 
was transformed into an avenging demon. 
So astutely had the murderers covered up 
their tracks that the law was powerless, or 
unwilling — such things have been — to reach 
them. But the avenger of blood was behind. 
Here, there, and everywhere the ' Holy 
Terror ' swooped down upon them, and never 
once was the boy known to miss his prey. 
One after the other eighteen men fell to his 
unerring gun. But by this time a regular 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 257 

partisan warfare had sprung up, and the 
famous Cattle- war was in full swing. In 
this history the ancient tale of the monkey 
and the cat comes to the fore again — the 
monkey being a well-known territorial poli- 
tician, about whose name does not cling the 
odour of sanctity. His cat's-paws were many ; 
his object was the possession of the murdered 
Englishman's fine ranches. One of his tools 
was kept continually riding to and from Santa 
Fe, misrepresenting matters to the Governor 
— to the politician's worldly advantage and 
the confounding of his enemies. Perhaps, 
in its refusal to admit our Territory to 
statehood, Government is not altogether 
the victim of partisan bias. But to return 
to earlier days. 

The politician, having by hook or crook 
succeeded in possessing himself of part of 
the dead man's property, yearned for the 
whole thereof. False causes for the war 
then raging, libels concerning the English- 
man, and carefully doctored accounts of his 
' removal,' were industriously presented to 
the Governor — now an author of widespread 
fame, Lew Wallace. But somehow the 

17 



258 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Governor was not to be convinced ; he per- 
sistently refrained from proclaiming as out- 
laws Morton and his friends, amongst whom 
were French and Mackintosh, the lawyer who 
had acted for the murdered Englishman and 
still acted for French. Nevertheless, the 
politician was not discouraged. In those 
days communication was slow and difficult, 
and it often happened that the Governor 
was ignorant of events occurring under 
his jurisdiction until too late for interven- 
tion. 

Acting on this assumption, the politician 
and his gang, or the gang without his bodily 
companionship — it matters not which — 
hastened to a neighbouring army post, and, 
representing their opponents as proclaimed 
outlaws, obtained the support of United 
States troopers. So far, so good. 

Now for the attack, the object of which was 
a long, low adobe house under the foot-hills, 
and above the little river flowing past the 
county town. In this house dwelt Mackin- 
tosh with, wife and children, and at the 
moment several other persons, Billy the 
Kid amongst them — fifteen in all. The 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 259 

soldiers were stationed upon the river bank 
some little distance from the house ; their 
part in the affair was simply passive, their 
presence being sufficient to interpose betwixt 
the besieged and outside aid. 

The back-door of the house gave on the 
foot-hills, and against this door the full fury 
of the attack was directed. A continuous 
fire kept up from eleven o'clock in the morn- 
ing until nightfall riddled the door with 
holes, and deterred the besieged from making 
any defence, there being, as is often the case 
in old adobe houses, no windows on that 
side. 

Under cover of the darkness the attacking 
force sent across to the hotel on the other 
bank of the river. There they procured 
a quantity of kerosene oil, which one of 
their number proceeded to pour through 
the holes in the door, soaking the floor 
within, his comrades firing over his head 
the while in order to distract the attention 
of the besieged. A few lighted matches 
finished the business. While the flames, 
fanned by the draught, gathered strength 
and volume, shots continued to rain like 

ly — 2 



260 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

hail into the hall - way, rendering it im- 
possible for those inside the house to ex- 
tinguish the blaze. 

Although adobe bricks are practically fire- 
proof, the woodwork of the dwelling offered 
no resistance to the flames, and the wretched 
inhabitants, driven from room to room by 
the smoke, finally made a dash for their 
lives, and were all, with one exception, help- 
less women and children included, brutally 
murdered. And all this happened less than 
twenty years ago, and apparently with the 
sanction of the authorities ; though, as has 
already been told, this sanction was only 
apparent. 

The one exception was the now famous 
Billy the Kid. He contrived to escape un- 
harmed, and, infuriated still further by this 
new tragedy, entered upon a career even 
more lawless and desperate than before. 
No means were left untried to procure his 
arrest, but for long all efforts were in vain. 
Banned now as an outlaw, the Sheriffs 
sought him untiringly, and at last ran him 
to earth in a lonely house, where, without 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 261 

food or fuel, he was in the end obliged to 
surrender. 

Billy lodged in gaol, the denizens of that 
section of country drew a full breath ; but 
they knew not Billy. It was not long be- 
fore he was at large again, well armed and 
mounted, free as the desert winds. The 
1 woman in the case ' had done her work 
well, as his gaolers with shame acknow- 
ledged. 

But his day was a short one. Once more 
he was captured, after a desperate resist- 
ance, tried, and condemned to death. This 
time he was guarded night and day by two 
Sheriffs, and for better security was put in 
irons as well as hand-cuffed. Now follows 
the most extraordinary history of careless- 
ness in connection with the guardianship of 
one who, mere boy as he was, was neverthe- 
less a notoriously daring criminal. He was 
in the habit of playing cards with his keepers, 
and often warned them, with a laugh, not to 
be too sure of him ; that he would escape 
' as sure as they were born. ' 

Notwithstanding his reiterated assurance, 



262 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

both men went out to dinner one day, leaving 
him alone. True, he was in irons, but that 
was a mere circumstance to Billy the Kid. 
Unobserved by his gaolers, he had long ere 
this succeeded in filing — though how he 
obtained his tools no one knew — the fetters 
confining hands and feet ; most likely he had 
no tools at all, but only pieces of old iron, 
picked up and worked with as opportunity 
served. It was now but a matter of a few 
minutes before he was free. He then took 
the loaded gun of one of the Sheriffs from a 
corner, and awaited results. Sheriff No. i, 
unlocking the door, found himself covered 
by the weapon in the hands of his prisoner, 
and forced to open to him the room in which 
the firearms were kept. 

His submission, however, availed him 
nothing. Billy speedily made an end of 
him, and proceeded to help himself to a 
couple of superb pistols and a fine Win- 
chester. Perceiving Sheriff No. 2 crossing 
the yard, he threw up the window and 
shot him dead. Then he ran downstairs, 
and holding off a small crowd, chiefly com- 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 263 

posed of Mexicans, he compelled one of 
them to saddle the fleetest horse in the 
corral, and throwing himself across its back, 
galloped away into space, cool and undis- 
turbed as ever. 

The friends from whom I obtained the 
story of this all-too-marvellous youth told 
me how one nightfall, when the whole 
country was ringing with the escape of Billy 
the Kid, a poor boy, representing himself as 
making his way on foot to some point to 
obtain work, knocked at the door of their 
somewhat lonely habitation, and begged for 
food and shelter. Obeying the customary 
command to ' hand up ' his guns — the pair 
of pistols to which allusion has been made — 
he was allowed to enter and take his seat at 
the family supper-table. 

So quiet and inoffensive, and also so 
young, did he appear, that not the faintest 
suspicion was aroused, and the conversation 
turning on the outlaw, the notice of his 
escape was produced, to which a so-called 
likeness of the fugitive was attached. Billy 
inquired of the mistress of the house if she 



264 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

thought she would recognize the original in 
the event of meeting him. She replied con- 
fidently in the affirmative. Soon after the 
guest was provided with blankets, and with- 
drew for the night to the shelter of some 
wool-sacks on the porch. 

When he joined the family at breakfast 
the following morning, he had tied his head 
up in a handkerchief, and complained of 
headache, the fact being, of course, that by 
means of the handkerchief he hoped to 
change his appearance. The father and 
eldest son were off betimes to round up 
some cattle, and the women and children 
were alone. The mother and daughter were 
engaged in cleaning house, and the young 
stranger made himself useful in moving 
furniture, etc. 

After awhile, however, the mother took 
alarm at the thought of a bucketful of silver 
money in the store — the father was a 
Government agent — and pretending that 
house-cleaning was over for the day, she 
dismissed her visitor, bestowing on him 
ample provisions, and receiving in return 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 265 

profuse expressions of gratitude. Her feel- 
ings can more easily be imagined than 
described when she learned later of the 
identity of the wanderer ; and not only that, 
but how, scarcely two miles on his way from 
her home, he had killed a man. His horse 
and his Winchester had remained hidden all 
night in the foot-hills, his pistols having 
naturally been returned to him upon his 
departure. 

But the career of even a Billy the Kid has 
to close at last, and the present Sheriff of this 
county was the man to close it. Hearing 
that the youthful desperado often took up his 
quarters at the ranch of a certain cattleman, 
he rode thither one night, prepared to ' take 
chances.' 

The house, after the manner of adobe 
houses, was one-storied, and finding an 
open window, the Sheriff quietly entered, 
to find himself in the room of the owner, 
who challenged the intruder from his bed. 
The Sheriff explained his errand in whispers, 
and, taking a seat on the bed, continued the 
conversation in the same tone. 



266 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

Now, it happened that the redoubtable 
Billy was actually in the house at the time, 
and finding himself attacked with the pangs 
of hunger, arose from his couch, and, taking 
a knife, was proceeding to the storeroom 
to cut himself some meat. Hearing voices 
in the room of his host, he opened the 
door and demanded to know who was 
there. 

Of course the Sheriff made no reply, but 
while the other man was explaining, he took 
careful aim at the young outlaw, as he stood 
in the doorway with a lighted lamp in his 
hand, and shot him through the heart. And 
that was the end of Billy the Kid. His 
career had lasted for five years, and in that 
space of time three hundred persons had met 
with death by violence. History does not 
relate the number that fell by the hand of 
the Kid alone. 

It has been well said by one* intimately 
acquainted for years with the inner life of the 
Territory, that, despite her imperative claims 
to recognition as a State, she has herself 

* H. O. Ladd. 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 267 

closed the door to statehood in her own 
face. To quote this authority : 

1 As we look back over the strange history 
of New Mexico through three centuries and 
a half, since Europeans first trod her plains, 
there will be impressed upon the thoughtful 
mind the conviction that her people have 
lacked certain qualities which have quickly 
built up States east and north of her 
boundaries.' 

Intelligent immigrants, untrammelled by 
ecclesiastical control ; a public education 
1 that shall train her youth to loyalty, in- 
dependence of thought and vote, and to 
self-respecting industry and enterprise as 
citizens ' — these, our author truly remarks, 
are among the qualifications necessary for 
admission to statehood. To conclude in his 
own words : 

1 With these conditions fulfilled, New 
Mexico will be welcomed to the American 
Union, to share the future greatness and 
glory of the nation, to whose possessions 
she will add her fair country, from whose 
lofty plateaus rise shining peaks like gems in 



268 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

the crown of the vast domain which lies 
between the two oceans.' 



Going westward, far from our quiet green 
vale, while the laden train climbs serpentwise 
the long grade, lean from the window, and 
take into your own the spirit of the desert's 
very self. Put from you the commonplaces 
of ' barrenness ' and ' monotony,' open wide 
the gates of the divine, and the wonder, the 
majesty, of this matchless scene will enter in. 
It will be yours for all time. It will flash 
upon the soul in the waking of troubled 
nights, in the breathing - spaces of life's 
driving storm, or when the cry of the 
human, without or within, urges too fiercely. 
And it will bear on its spread wings a great 
and awful calm ; for it is the Spirit of the 
Desert. 

Yet, pressing closer to Nature's breast 
than ever before, we are further from her 
heart. She has neither part nor lot in us. 
Never was she more aloof, more self- 
sufficing. 

All that is mortal is behind us, a mere 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 269 

jangle of voices submerged in this tremendous 
calm. Even the thunder of the wheels — 
bearing, as the ship across the ocean, all 
that nineteenth -century civilization demands 
on its voyage from port to port — is lost in 
the low breathing of the desert wind. 

Here no green thing, changing with the 
changing seasons, grows. The gramma of 
the high ranges bends and darkens not here 
beneath the rolling summer cloud ; but to 
the motionless billows of a desolation com- 
plete and unspeakable cactus and Spanish 
dagger cling solitary. The Indian in his 
dug-out — a speck of mortality set in leagues 
of living death — finds no place here. No 
travel-worn cattle limp painfully, seeking 
water, neither is the trail marked by writhen 
forms which have yielded life in torture ; for 
water is not. 

Piled on the desert's circling edge, above 
the undulating plain, rises range after range 
of mountains — lofty, fantastically shaped — 
sentinels of nothing. Yet in forgotten ages 
it may be that the waters of a lake, now but 
a rare desert mirage, rippled high over the 
knees of those pyramids and pinnacles, and 



270 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 

that then, the supreme hour having come, 
the Voice having authority spoke, and the 
waters fled, ploughing in their course deep 
furrows in the everlasting hills, and so sinking 
into the earth, until in very truth there was 
no more sea. 

No ruthless Apache or mild Pueblo crosses 
now the still and solemn plain on which we 
gaze. All is peace, while the sun declines to 
his appointed place. There, where for un- 
counted ages he has rested in his passing — 
there he leans now, marshalling to his own 
the banners of his serried hosts, who the 
long day through have followed him in light 
array from the hither brim to the further of 
the earth's wide cup. 

Twilight blurs the remote radiance of 
heaven with a hurried trail of garments, 
upon whose hem Night has already laid a 
hand wrapped in a mantle of sable pierced 
with the flash of stars. Back to the world 
that is too much with us we creep from the 
vast and solitary waste. Undisturbed by our 
coming, indifferent to our going, Sphinx-like 
still she broods and watches from her 
pyramids and towers. But her spirit, the 



THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 271 

Spirit of the Great Desert, has entered in. 
It is ours for all time. 

' Our petty souls, our strutting wits, 
Our laboured, puny passion-fits — 
Ah, may she scorn them still, till we 
Scorn them as bitterly as she !' 



THE END. 



BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 

G. C 



G. C. & Co. 



IT* 



OCT 23 laQQ 



lilulll 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





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017 055 533 8 



